Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
The last six months have seen significant strides forward for the motor industry, with manufacturers taking control of the customer insurance journey in-house, and advancing what has been on offer through the traditional insurance sector at the same time.
Take electric and autonomous vehicle pioneer Tesla for instance, which has embarked upon several collaborations with insurance businesses around the world to help distribute insurance for its products – not least Direct Line in the UK – but has also taken this a step further with its own in-house driver insurance coverage, most recently to cover users of its personal ride sharing app.
BMW also now offers its own cover tailored for Mini Drivers – Mini Flex Car Insurance – boasting some pretty nifty customer service, including the option for customers to access and amend their policy documents online and real-time premium updates.
Motor dealers are no strangers to insurance, of course, with many already offering temporary ‘driveaway’ insurance or GAP type coverage.
At the same time, other manufacturers / dealers are now offering cover which purports to be manufacturer or even model specific, but as with the Mini Flex Policy, there’s really not a lot – if anything – differentiating the policy from a generic one that a customer could find on a comparison site.
There is genuine scope for a far more comprehensive, joined up offering from dealers that capitalises on their brand – through their franchise as a main dealer, for example, or as a dealer brand – to offer policies that engender trust, increased customer interaction, lifetime client value as well as customer loyalty and retention.
Many motor traders are unaware that new insurance technology platforms exist that enable digital businesses to accomplish this with low barriers to entry – ticking all regulatory boxes for instance – while retaining control over the whole customer experience: control over data that has simply not been possible through traditional insurance solutions.
Simon Ball is CEO of Quotall