Oliver Jaillon, CEO & CPO at Wakam leads this InsureTech Connect Panel Discussion with Patrick Smith, Global Insurance Leader at Deliveroo, and Quentin Colmant, CEO & Co-Founder at Qover. Hear how Wakam, Deliveroo, and Qover have successfully bypassed the traditional channels of insurance to protect the gig economy workers.
Transcript
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[Music]
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so good morning itc we’re super happy to
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be here with you virtually unfortunately
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and
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but excited about talking about our
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three ways collaborations between cover
0:16
wacom and deliveroo and how we were
0:19
successful we think about launching
0:20
products produced and operated digitally
0:23
for the gig economy
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so first a few words about who we are
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wakam uh we’re an insurer a full start
0:30
property and casualty ensure delivering
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white label solutions digitally through
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apis uh
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to all kind of distributors uh across
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europe uh we’re pan-european players now
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maybe patrick i mean you can tell us a
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little bit more about uh i would call it
0:45
the meteor its growth of delivery and
0:48
especially how you came up with an
0:50
insurance solutions for uh the riders
0:53
you know deliveroo has grown as a
0:55
digital platform uh not least because of
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the consumer behavior
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of
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enjoying delivered food
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more as a natural part of everyday life
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rather than just special occasions
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and essentially there are three key
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stakeholders for delivery in the world
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of deliveroo first and foremost there’s
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you need hungry customers so as long as
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consumers are hungry there’s a market
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for delivered food
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but providing them with what they want
1:27
when they want it is key critical
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secondly there are restaurants so you
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need people to cook the food that’s
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going to be delivered and
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rather than being disruptive delivery is
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additive by providing restaurants an
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additional income stream and a way to
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scale their business
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without the overheads of bricks and
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mortar and finally you need a community
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of uh boys and girls who want to deliver
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that food
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and therefore chiming into
1:56
the geek economy and
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the desire of many people to work
2:03
at a time and a place that suits them
2:06
and in fact to work on many platforms is
2:08
at the heart of uh delivery’s world i
2:11
started working with deliveroo uh
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over three years ago really focusing
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initially on the corporate insurance
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programs which i still look after but
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but what was
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clear was that a form of protection
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through insurance was required for the
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freelancers
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and
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what was also clear is that
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traditional insurance did not quite do
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the job
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um
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and it started forming in my mind
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a kind of
2:43
if you like an ask of the insurance
2:46
industry of how can we find something
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that is really super simple
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that has superb user experience it’s
2:55
very easy for the beneficiaries of the
2:58
insurance to access
3:01
that uses the appropriate language and
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repeatedly we often see in the insurance
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industry great using insurance language
3:11
to consumers that really doesn’t work it
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had to use the the language and the
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culture of deliveroo in the way it
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communicates with the community and we
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were looking at personal accident
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insurance we were looking at replacement
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income if a rider was unable to work
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we’ve been looking at from time to time
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sickness cover
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we’ve been looking at third party
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liability so if you if you like all of
3:37
those protections a ride would need
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but the test of any insurance is
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at the point of truth does it pay did it
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work was the language simple was was it
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super easy for these stakeholders to
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understand
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and uh last but not least
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the insurance arranged on a group basis
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if you like with
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unnamed beneficiaries was a key concept
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of the insurance which of course isn’t
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kind of normal in traditional insurance
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and then finding an easy way to
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to calculate and charge the premium
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so it’s really works like a kind of pay
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on use insurance so you get charged when
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the exposure is there and when the
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exposure is not there you don’t get
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charged so it was quite a demanding list
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i mean a short but simple list
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but actually when you look at
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traditional insurance it was quite
4:30
demanding which is why
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you know we i hooked up with uh quentin
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at a
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cover and it needed some fresh thinking
4:39
uh to bring to the
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i mean maybe content you can tell us a
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little bit more about cover
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and uh and also you can tell us a little
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bit more about why you chose us i
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founded cover with joshal
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my associate in 2016.
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we really are this kind of european
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european insurtech that that pioneer in
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the concept of open api and and embedded
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insurance and and so far we are super
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pleased to be active already in 11
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countries and we cover more than 1000
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insured took several great partnership
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so so cover has really the same kind of
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dna and same techn
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however we are a financial intermediary
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we are not an insurer and and i’m
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someone very pragmatic so so it’s very
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interesting because i was carefully
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listening to what patrick said and it
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looks like he he knew exactly what i was
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about to say but we did not realize
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before because i it is exactly what i i
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was considering in terms of why
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how did we help deliver so to be very
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pragmatic when you think about
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the geek platform
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first and foremost what is key is this
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global solution the global approach you
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know deliver who is active in europe in
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seven countries and what they want is to
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have a kind of harmonized solution that
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can you know serve the rider help the
6:07
rider um in a very
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standardized and harmonized way and what
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they want to avoid is that each country
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is different and this is really key to
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understand is that cover is based in
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belgium and we operate in europe with
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what we call the freedom of services and
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for those who are from us and don’t know
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freedom of services basically it
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entitled a european business to operate
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from his own country to all european
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countries and by doing that by operating
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from brussels we make sure that there is
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one process one same operation one same
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way to manage claim one same way to
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serve delivery across multiple countries
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and this is key because uh what is very
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important for players like deliveroo is
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of course to optimize the cost of
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insurance and optimizing the cost is not
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only the premium you pay but it’s also
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the the the administrative cost on the
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side of delivery to manage the program
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and by having a pan-european approach we
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enable to streamline the cost to be
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super efficient in the way we serve the
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client while traditional players
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actually even though they could be
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global they remain local it’s the sum of
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local entities because each of them
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would operate locally for example in
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france in spain and in the uk so this
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first of all pan-european approach is
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key and the direct consequence of that
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is something that patrick mentioned but
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but it’s important to understand a
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delivery rider might be for example a
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spanish student that is actually
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studying in france so if he has an issue
7:43
if he has a claim he would be super
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happy to speak to the
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call center or the customer care center
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in english or he would be even more
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delighted to speak in spanish and
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because we have this kind of
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consolidated operation that happened
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european we are able to serve all the
8:00
riders in the native language wherever
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there are in europe what was also
8:05
important and and i repeat a bit what
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that it said but it is exactly my my
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word is that what delivery was looking
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or players were looking is to be able to
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better manage um seasonality effects
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because gig economy and food delivery
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and see a lot of seasonability a
8:23
seasonality story but also
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to manage externalities and kovi 19 is a
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good example of what you call
8:29
externalities and how you do that is to
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transform
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a cost of insurance into variable cost
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so what we’ve been able to put in place
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is to really have a variable pricing a
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per hour pricing or per uh other pricing
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that actually manage uh positively the
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risk for delivery and and and make sure
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that we can face this seasonality or
8:54
externality and last but not least
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for delivery you know it’s an unknown
8:59
risk when we started three years ago and
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we went on the market to find an insurer
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and we say look there is a great
9:05
opportunity to insure some people that
9:08
will try to deliver food as fast as
9:10
possible on the bike on the scooter and
9:12
we want to cover liability an accident
9:14
do you want to do it to do to ensure
9:16
that uh i would say 99 per person of the
9:19
insurer said no absolutely no so so it
9:21
was a new risk in a very fast moving
9:24
environment and it was key
9:26
to to find
9:27
a partner that was that was very open uh
9:30
to that and and and we as cover are very
9:34
proactive in managing the risk we are in
9:36
daily contact with patrick we have done
9:38
perfect i think thousands of pricing and
9:40
product simulation to continuously
9:43
improve the coverage improved optimize
9:46
the processes and and and you know
9:48
having this reactivity and even
9:50
productivity and monitoring the risk is
9:53
something key that we need to offer and
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and and cover
9:57
really play here the role of financial
9:59
intermediary by being close to the
10:01
client and really serve the client the
10:04
same way so then the question you ask
10:05
olivier why why cam i would say to
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people that are watching us if you are
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an initial tech like us or a business
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just work one time with wacom and then
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you will understand why
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that’s the best answer i could give to
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this question and and you dare to take
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some risk and at the end that was very
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important to have someone that dare to
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take some risk that there also to
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address the risk and the pricing
10:29
continuously because we are a
10:30
partnership we really try to find the
10:33
the right balance here all together and
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at the end you know doing business is
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all about having fun and there are
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really some great and nice smart people
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at wacom same at deliveroo and it’s been
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already three years we worked together
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but it was three year very fun
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relationship
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thank you kanta uh i mean the whole
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relationship with our partners like you
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uh contact with cover is fully
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digitalized i mean we try to give you a
10:58
full transparency about the
11:00
decision-making process which is not
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uh very often the case with incumbent
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insurer i would say that so we try to
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give transparency and speed
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and and like you said i mean i think we
11:14
dare to take some risks i mean an
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insurer is there to take risks uh it
11:18
requires to change a little bit the
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approach because uh historically i mean
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insurers have been uh
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working with actuarial models it means
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that you analyze data from the past
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to project the future so now we have to
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work differently because there are more
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and more new risks coming up like you
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said
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uh riders that have to deliver as fast
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as possible
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food to people is uh can be considered
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as a uh as uh as the wrong risk to be uh
11:47
to be insured
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but it’s actually the thing that we do
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now and that we do thanks to you and
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thanks to the conjunction of the of
11:55
collaborating a lot with delivery is
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that through our api through our systems
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we can adapt the pricing we can test and
12:01
learn and that’s what we’re trying to do
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and now i mean um
12:05
our company grew from 50 million gwp to
12:08
400 million in in five years
12:11
and uh mobility is already one third uh
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of that gwp
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and uh and i think that that’s why we we
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wanted to put a lot of expertise on
12:20
mobility and that’s why we love our
12:22
partnerships and across the three years
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we’re learning i mean we keep on
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learning
12:26
about improving the product improving
12:28
the customer experience improving the
12:30
technical results of course
12:31
of the products
12:33
and i think maybe i’d like to add up
12:35
some things that what makes sex
12:36
successful i think a partnership between
12:38
our three companies is also that the
12:41
rules have been defined very clearly i
12:43
mean uh at webcam we don’t do
12:45
distribution we will never do
12:46
distribution i mean this is your job uh
12:49
at cover understanding the needs of of
12:52
of delivery and building the right
12:54
customer experience with them and
12:56
building the right products we’re an
12:58
insurer we try to understand your needs
13:00
we try to build the right products and
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we stay there
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and that’s what we do in the value chain
13:05
so we consider that we are driving belts
13:08
between capital and distributors and
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uh and i think that makes the the
13:12
partnership very successful uh because
13:14
everybody has a very clear and defined
13:17
uh role in this so
13:19
i would say so i would say trust and
13:20
willingness to innovate uh
13:23
top-notch customer experience european
13:24
approach like you said we were now
13:26
licensed in
13:28
uh 13 countries through freedom of
13:29
services and we anticipate to be
13:31
licensed into 28 european countries or
13:33
29 however you can’t
13:36
and
13:36
and this gives us a real assets to build
13:39
pioneer
13:40
program with distributors
13:42
um
13:44
maybe i mean patrick you want you want
13:46
to say a a few words because for for us
13:49
there were the drivers to build a
13:50
successful partnership like ours but
13:52
also there’s the human relation the
13:54
transparency the collaboration
13:56
and uh maybe you can talk a little bit
13:57
about those three years
13:59
yeah sure well uh i mean i think we’re
14:02
all agreed it’s been a journey but the
14:04
interesting thing in a world full of
14:06
change the journey never ends
14:08
i think one of the things we’ve alluded
14:10
to
14:11
but haven’t said directly
14:13
is a requirement for delivery of uh
14:16
complete compliance and governance
14:20
so when we talk about innovation it’s
14:22
not at the expense of doing things
14:24
properly in a very compliant way
14:27
so much so that the
14:29
design work and sourcing of insurance
14:31
for deliveroo
14:32
in fact is done through an independent
14:34
company called tribe advisory
14:36
which has other clients and other
14:38
collaborations with wacam and with the
14:41
with cover but to make sure that there
14:44
was no regulatory uh tripwire in terms
14:48
of creating something really quite new i
14:51
think in terms of the relationship
14:53
i mean keeping things simple and i think
14:55
the clarity on role
14:57
is is key critical
14:59
whenever i’ve seen in my experience and
15:01
i’ve been in the risk and insurance
15:02
world for
15:04
40 years
15:06
when you look at things go wrong
15:08
it’s often where there’s a cloudiness
15:11
about who’s responsible for what so the
15:14
simplicity has worked well for us
15:16
and actually understanding what the
15:18
mutual goal and objective is
15:21
so really there’s just one mission and
15:23
we’re all playing our part has been key
15:26
absolute trust and transparency so as we
15:30
we entered this journey actually
15:33
um it wasn’t without risk
15:35
um
15:36
i think
15:37
the key requirement for deliveroo was to
15:40
make sure
15:41
that
15:42
it articulated how it managed the rider
15:45
community in terms of onboarding in
15:49
terms of health and safety and all of
15:52
these
15:52
oversight responsibilities
15:55
just to be absolutely satisfied
15:58
that lack of claims data doesn’t mean
16:01
you don’t understand the risk
16:03
so
16:04
understanding how the whole operation
16:06
works was key critical to
16:09
all parties transparency was the key
16:13
and i would say flexibility and the
16:16
ability to
16:19
test
16:20
and change and be reactive proactive and
16:23
responsive has been absolutely key
16:26
critical
16:27
certainly what we couldn’t have was an
16:29
arrangement whereby
16:31
we only look to innovate once a year
16:34
around renewal time
16:35
in the world of deliveroo and actually
16:38
in the world we live in
16:39
of uh climate change and pandemic and
16:43
all those other things
16:45
we collaborate collaborate on a kind of
16:48
365 basis we might need to respond
16:51
almost immediately to something that
16:54
either we predicted or we hadn’t
16:56
predicted and i think uh
16:58
last but not least
17:00
is
17:01
never forget the end user and ultimately
17:05
we can create great things that are no
17:08
relevance
17:09
not even important to the end user so
17:12
it’s got to be attractive appealing and
17:15
in the moment of truth it has to work
17:18
and in our world that is unfortunately
17:21
if we have any kind of accident and
17:24
we have lots and lots of claims
17:26
uh members of the public who have been
17:29
innocently lost or damaged need to be
17:31
looked after they’re all potential
17:33
customers of deliveroo
17:35
our riders if they can’t work uh god
17:38
forbid if they’re involved in accidents
17:41
of the greatest severity we need to look
17:44
after them
17:45
under the terms and conditions of the
17:47
policy we need to look after their
17:48
families but we need to do that in a
17:51
non-standard responsive way
17:54
so no reservation of rights no kind of
17:58
elongated consequential claims process
18:01
we collaborate we get together we assess
18:04
what’s necessary and we react quickly in
18:06
a quite kind of non-standard but uh very
18:09
exciting way so
18:11
that i think are the hallmarks of the
18:13
relationship
18:14
they’re why the relationship has lasted
18:17
three years and there’s no reason to
18:19
suppose that the relationship
18:21
for deliveroo and maybe other clients
18:23
that tribe and cover have will will
18:26
extend and extend and extend
18:29
well happy to hear about that uh patrick
18:31
but as well the the nature of
18:34
transportation is changing uh clearly
18:36
we’re moving from property to usage and
18:38
that changes i mean how insurance has to
18:41
be delivered uh clearly and maybe uh
18:44
content but cover you can say a few
18:46
words about that
18:47
and and also i mean my vision that why
18:49
cam is our vision is that kovi 19 has
18:52
even accelerated uh that movement of
18:55
fractional usage and i’d like to know if
18:57
you’re both on the same page with me
19:00
yeah absolutely thanks to the vso i i
19:02
believe kovi 19 has indeed changed and
19:05
we see a lot of new requests regarding a
19:08
mobility solution and i’m also a strong
19:10
believer like you that
19:12
it’s going towards what we call embedded
19:14
insurance and and what we are doing all
19:18
together is a perfect example of
19:20
embedded insurance in which we add
19:23
insurance as a service into another type
19:26
of mobility as a service so
19:29
that’s a great kind of collaboration
19:31
about embedded insurance
19:33
and patrick yeah and for me i mean zero
19:36
carbon is now mandatory governments
19:38
support it taxation supports it and the
19:41
people support it kovit 19 gave us clear
19:44
skies and now we’ve got an ever more
19:47
increasing focus on the last mile and
19:50
the last mile can’t be petrol driven so
19:53
that drives electric vehicles uh we’re
19:56
living in a subscription-based world now
19:58
rather than asset owned and therefore
20:01
insurance what a great opportunity to
20:03
adapt and to modify and you know those
20:06
that move the quickest will reap the
20:09
greatest rewards
20:11
yes
20:13
i agree so so thank you itc and thank
20:16
you to have listened to us and
20:18
you can see that we were very happy
20:20
about working together for the last
20:22
three years and i hope it will just go
20:23
on for another three years
20:26
[Music]