On-demand travel insurance? Could be a first marketplace feature?

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hi,

Basic idea for a feature here - just wanted to see what people thought (as I can see a lot of arguments against it!)

Basically I was thinking, Monzo could actually easily prompt someone if they are interested in travel insurance on the prompt that sees that they are travelling (with some way of dismissing it permanently if you already have annual insurance). The way I see it it would be a link off to other insurance providers rather than Monzo actually offering it themselves.

Could easily be more annoying than any benefit (plus I hate things trying to sell me things) however maybe there are uninsured people out there who forgot/could benefit from being offered insurance when they need it?

What are peoples thoughts?

James

3 Likes
2

I believe one of the main issues is the regulatory and competition issue’s that arise due to selling insurance or recommending it.

3

But surely there is a way to implement this that gets around this? For example if its a marketplace its just picking up that you are travelling and saying do you need travel insurance here are some partners? Im not suggesting Monzo actually sell anything themselves.

The reason I think this might be interesting is that Monzo already has a robust method of picking up people changing country/going on trips. Seems like a smart hook for financial services.

1 Like
4

Tom has hinted at a referral model before, he explains how the integration might work in this video.

This could work, if Monzo saw that you’d just made a booking with Expedia for example & pushed the feed item to you. Random offers are annoying but these would be very timely.

I don’t think the offer could be made based on your location though because as far as I’m aware, travel insurance has to be bought the day before you travel, at the latest.

5

it is not too big a hurdle as long as customers advised if you a tied agent for one insurer or not and if you providing them information from which they decide or if you advising or recommending in which case you channelling or directing them so have potential professional liability issues if they misadvised.

6

Going off the ‘noticing a transaction’ vibe there is another type of insurance that could be offered - rental car insurance is actually a lot cheaper if you buy it separately from the hire company (point 3 on here: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jun/15/holiday-car-hire-10-ways-avoid-being-ripped-off)

Maybe another thought is linking through to insurance if people made a europcar, hertz etc transaction?

2 Likes
7

With instant transactions, the offer could be pushed to you in time for you to get a refund for the insurance that you just bought, before you leave the store :laughing:

1 Like
8

haha I like that!

These kind of ideas could link into ‘travel smarter with monzo’ - e.g. save money on foreign spending, ATM withdrawal but also on insurance too

1 Like
9

Apart from basic car rental insurance, extras like Collision Damage Waiver and protecting your policy excess

2 Likes
10

Would it not be a bit late to be sorting out travel insurance once you are already travelling?

Could do something clever with recognising transactions to trigger a prompt? (Flights/ travel agents etc)

TBH though I think it is pretty close, if not identical, to serving up adverts in the app, and I would find it annoying.

11

I’m sure we at Cuvva would be interested in integrating with Mondo on this :slight_smile:

4 Likes