Jeff Snyder is the VP of Revenue at Matic, a leading digital insurance marketplace of 40+ A-rated home & auto carriers. Jeff was interviewed by Andrew Daniels, Founder and Managing Director at InsurTech Ohio and COO at LISA Insurtech.
Since Matic officially entered the market in 2017, how have things changed in embedded insurance?
“Embedded insurance was not a hot topic five years ago. We chose to enter the market by embedding real-time quotes when it matters the most for customers through strategic partnerships. Ultimately, that approach helps simplify the world of insurance for our customers, which has been our vision since the idea of Matic was imagined back in 2014. Since then, the landscape has changed quite a bit as carriers and agencies have recognized the benefits. Insurance is in many cases reactive. If I buy a home, I need a policy. Figuring out a way to simplify that experience during the home buying process adds value for all parties involved and reduces a huge friction point. There is a trust factor for the customer when you're engaged with them throughout their process. You typically see higher retention, higher conversion and higher NPS — which is all a result of creating a better customer experience.”
Embedded insurance is all about simplicity, how simple is it in practice?
“The end-user experience must be simple. The goal is to eliminate unnecessary noise from the customer journey. You can do this by leveraging partner data, augmenting additional data points and presenting real-time quotes to a customer without them spending time entering in details, often which they don’t even know yet. The reality is, it’s difficult in practice. In order to create that simplicity, you need the technical ability to make it happen and partners that are willing to put in the effort to prioritize a great customer experience. The most highly successful partnerships require a solid commitment from the organization to support the program. For partners, this ultimately means an incredibly meaningful ancillary revenue stream as well as 2-3x retention and brand affinity among their customers.”
Why only focus on embedded insurance?
“For us, it's simple — it's all about the customer experience. This is something we talk about daily — both internally and externally to whomever will listen. We want to create the best customer experience, and by embedding an insurance offering within the home or auto ownership experience, we're meeting customers where they are, at the moment they need insurance. Embedding enables the connection of home and auto data from our partnerships to our carrier network. This saves customers hours of work entering in information and researching insurance options. We take the hard work out of it, and it helps them save money by providing actual choice in an unbiased, transparent fashion. On average, our customers are saving $625 a year, or 33% compared to their prior policy. All in all, this creates a far superior customer experience.”
Why an independent agency versus MGA?
“I’ll go back to customer experience here because the reality is there's no one size fits all carrier that can support customers in all 50 states and cover all the bases. Frankly, carriers tell us this directly. How do we accomplish our vision if we have only one option, or we can't find competitive options and available products for all of our customers in all 50 states? The independent agency model enables us to be focused on easing the biggest pain point for customers, which is finding the right policy. As an independent agent, we can provide customers with choice, not just one product, so they understand their options and can find a policy that meets their needs. Additionally, we can advocate for our customers by offering them unbiased advice. We never favor specific carriers within our network. This also allows us to create a flexible shopping process — customers can buy online or work with a licensed Matic advisor if they have questions.”
How have you approached buy vs. build decisions over the life of the company? Has it changed over time?
“The decision for us was easy. I continue to talk about our drive toward creating the best customer experience. In order to do that, we recognized limitations with the old way of buying insurance, and we did not want to be tethered to third-party legacy insurance tech. We had to commit to this approach. We spent the time, energy and money to build a proprietary CRM, quoting/rating engine and systems that speak to each other in real time that reduce friction for customers and create efficiencies in our process. We have found this approach creates a much better experience. We know this to be true, based on our off-the-charts Net Promoter Score of 90, which greatly exceeds insurance industry benchmarks.”
InsurTech Ohio Thanks Its Partners
