Successful pilot for personal accident cover by mobile phone now branches out into the mainstream with numerous revolutionary ways to give many more people insurance.
Cover2go, a division of Metropolitan Life, received enormous media interest in its world-first mobile-phone based insurance. After a successful trial during Easter, and a brief regroup and refinement of strategy, the company has now come back with a full-blown nation-wide product offering that provides life cover, insurance cover and more.
“The majority of South Africans don’t have any insurance, and have essentially never had any insurance, because traditional insurance products require a bank account for premium payment, and are sold through brokers. For decades, people in townships and rural areas made a plan by setting up semi-formal funeral savings societies, but these lacked any sort of regulation, and in some cases they were scams or defrauded people,” explains Derek Pead, CEO of Cover2go. “The problem was simple: how do we bring the benefits of a fully regulated, full-service insurance products to the majority of South Africans. The answer? Mobile technology.”
Cover2go’s business model is based on direct access to consumers through low-cost technology channels such as mobile phone and the web. There are around 25-million cellphone subscribers in South Africa with 8.3% of the population having accessed the web in the last 12 months. High-tech direct channels allow Cover2go to create products at very low price-points, without multiple levels of markups by intermediaries, or the need to pay for large administration centres. Products can be sold directly through mobile phones, or via fixed terminals in spaza shops and supermarkets connected to the mobile data networks.
“We can dramatically increase the number of consumers that we can address, and in most cases not cannibalise on existing broker-based business. We can also innovate and roll out products to market incredibly quickly – we’re talking a few weeks, not months or years – and even fine-tune them on the fly,” says Pead. “Cover2go gives Metropolitan Life access to a whole new market, as well as creating an innovation lab for new ideas. The insurance industry will never be the same again.”
Detailed below is information regarding two lead products.
A Pot of Gold at 75
A supplement to retirement income launched by Metropolitan’s Cover2go means living to a ripe old age doesn’t mean running out of pension.
The prospect that pensioners may outlive their retirement funds due to increased life expectancy and the ravages of inflation has prompted Cover2go, a division of Metropolitan Life, to launch a pure risk product to supplement retirement income and pension funds. Milestone LongLife Cover guarantees a tax-free lump sum payout of R1 million at age 75, so that pensioners can avoid meager living standards.
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Cover2go Brings Accident Cover To Everyone
After a successful pilot project in Gauteng over Easter, Cover2go’s “instant accident cover by mobile phone” has been released nationwide
Cover2go, a division of Metropolitan, is first to market with personal accident cover that is accessible – and affordable – to South Africans that have always been overlooked by traditional accident cover companies. By paying R10 via an SMS, people can get R15, 000 worth of accident cover instantly for 30 days – ideal for times of greater risk, such as when travelling over busy holiday periods.
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