Are we trying to eat their lunch? Where do we fall in the insurance value chain? And what does our orchestration actually include?

That’s why we decided to set the record straight by asking Qover experts to debunk some common myths about who we are and how we work.

‍

‍

1. Qover is a digital broker.

‍

False. Qover is an insurance agent.

'To put it simply, typically a broker represents the clients – or policyholders – so, the person taking out the insurance. We represent the risk carriers when performing insurance distribution activities. A good example is when we receive a delegation of authority from them to handle the claims on their behalf.' – Amandine de Lhoneux, Strategic Insurance Business Expert and Risk Carrier Manager

‍

2. Qover is an insurer.

‍

False. Qover is actually an untied agent, regulated by the Financial Services Markets Authority (FSMA in Belgium and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK.

'We are an insurance intermediary, executing insurance distribution activities in the name and on behalf of insurance companies. We have about 12 different insurance companies delegating to us, so we act in their name and on their behalf. If we look at a managing general agent (MGA), we can actually do most of the activities that an MGA can do. The difference is that we do not have the responsibility of underwriting.' – Caroline Hanotiau, General Counsel

‍

Read more about the legal side of embedded insurance →

‍

3. Qover is a software that you can purchase and own.

‍

False. We are an API-first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that enables insurance distribution and lifecycle management on behalf of our partners.

'Partners integrate our capabilities in their system by implementing our APIs and thus benefit from the power of our platform. We manage everything in our backend so they don’t have to focus on the various complexities of insurance.' – Romuald Deshayes, Platform Owner

'As a tech-first insurtech orchestrator, we are able to deploy, build and orchestrate insurance experiences. We do that on behalf of our partners, where we configure and manage the insurance solutions in our tech platform.' - Quentin Colmant, CEO and Co-founder

‍

‍

4. Orchestration is tech-only.

‍

False. Orchestration is made up of many parts, such as tech and insurance services.

'Orchestration is tech-driven, but it’s made up of many parts. The essence of orchestration is that partners are offered a set of services that can be selected on a per needs basis. Think of it as a checklist of capabilities that the partner can choose from. The tech layer is only one of these items. Any of our insurance services can be selected: frontend and/or APIs for insurance distribution and full lifecycle, customer care operations, claims handling, balance sheet coordination, data, internationalisation capabilities, etc.' – Romuald Deshayes, Platform Owner

'You can see it as filling in the gaps in different value chains. If you only focus on orchestrating the tech, then insurance programs would have a lot of missing pieces. We really see ourselves as that magic weapon. For example, let’s say you only have three languages in your customer care centre and need five more. You also need the third-party administration (TPA) to receive the claims from an API layer – then you’d be able to use those specific parts of our modular platform. Orchestration is really that end-to-end toolbox that you can leverage to fill the gaps.' - Baudouin de La Rochefoucauld, Strategic Partnerships Lead

'The insurance experience is much broader than tech. It's about servicing, customer care, claims management, sourcing insurance capacity if needed, understanding the local requirements from a regulatory perspective and so on. As an orchestrator, we have all of those different activities. If a partner only wants our tech, it’s fine, we can do that – but we can do much more than that.' – Quentin Colmant, CEO and Co-founder

5. Qover handles all claims.

‍

It depends on the partner’s needs. We can handle claims in-house or outsource to a third party.

'We handle a host of claims in-house. Depending on what the partner’s looking for, we can maintain those in-house, we can outsource to TPAs or we might recommend going out of house if you have something very complex and niche. But if you have simple, high-volume claims with a multilingual requirement, then those are the claims we handle really effectively within Qover.' - Ed Ackerman, Chief Customer Officer

'We operate on two main models. In the first model, we handle the claims. This is applicable to most personal lines products across Europe with all the local languages – with the exception of motor insurance. All of the claims data flows through our systems in a homogeneous manner, which results in an online dashboard with what’s happening at that very moment with our claims handling team. In the second model, we either outsource the claim to a TPA, the insurer or whoever else has that capacity. In that scenario, we capture the claims data either via our API or a Qover-hosted form, and then automatically translate that into the appropriate format to transfer to the TPA or insurer. Typically it’s either via email, bordereaux or another customer report that we can generate. This really allows us to switch either model on or off depending on the client’s needs.' - Baudouin de La Rochefoucauld, Strategic Partnerships Lead

'We actually manage about 80% of the claim volume ourselves, with a very strong focus on efficiency, but also quality. When we insource claims, we provide all of our partners with an online dashboard where they can track the different claims, their status and also their service level agreement. We have very strict SLAs in place with all of our partners. It's very transparent, which is one of our key focuses.' – Quentin Colmant, CEO and Co-founder

‍

6. Qover goes direct to market.

‍

True. Qover has direct relationships with a host of business partners. 

‍'Qover goes direct to market, identifying prospects and potential customers. We discuss with them to understand their requirements and needs, and then we match that with our network of insurance companies. We know what they’re offering, as well as their appetite and strategy. We’ll use that to identify the best insurance company that matches the customer’s needs. We’ll ask for a quote and present that to the customer. Once the customer has selected the best offer, we will then contract directly with them as an agent of the selected insurance company.' - Caroline Hanotiau, General Counsel

‍

‍

7. Qover works with insurers & brokers where they own the client relationship.

‍

True. We’re happy to work behind the scenes. 

'In this case, the deal comes from the insurer or broker who already holds the client relationship. They contact us in order to support and orchestrate their program by using our insurance and tech expertise.' - Amandine

'Qover is not fussy about who owns the relationship. It really is about making sure that the partner gets the relationship they want and that their customers are best served by the overall relationship. So we’re more than happy to work with insurers, other intermediaries or third parties to deliver on that promise.' - Ed Ackerman, Chief Customer Officer

'It's one of our preferred and fastest-growing distribution channels. Risk carriers and brokers own the relationship with the client, and either we are totally invisible while orchestrating in the background, or if they want us to be a bit more visible, we can do that too.' – Quentin Colmant, CEO and Co-founder

‍

8. Qover is a direct competitor to insurers.

‍

False. We aim to enable insurers, not replace them.

'Through our orchestration services, we aim to enable insurers, not disrupt them. We are non-prescriptive when it comes to our platform: they can choose the elements that work best to complement their programs and skills. Basically, we focus on what we do best (orchestrating programs) so the insurers can focus on their core business (providing risk capacity).' - Amandine de Lhoneux, Strategic Insurance Business Expert and Risk Carrier Manager

'As an insurance orchestrator, we work hand-in-hand with insurers to deliver the overall proposition to business partners. Those partners can take as much or as little as they want from Qover or directly from the insurer, depending on the use case in question.' - Ed Ackerman, Chief Customer Officer

'Qover will never have a balance sheet, so we’ll never focus on managing that risk. What Qover really specialises in is tech-driven orchestration – we see ourselves as an enabler rather than a competitor. As our CEO often says, we don’t care about owning the client relationship as long as we’re in our preferred role in the ecosystem. We rather see ourselves as a great partner where we help risk carriers and brokers execute on their digital opportunities and reach the market in the fastest manner possible.' - Baudouin de La Rochefoucauld, Strategic Partnerships Lead

‍

9. Qover facilitates quick, multi-country rollouts.

‍

True. Our fully configurable platform means we can easily launch any product in any country for any partner.

'Our platform has been designed in such a way that we can facilitate quick rollouts across borders. It’s fully modular and configurable to any product, one or more, in any country, one or more, for any given partner we have.' - Ines Meyer-Horn, Strategic Partnerships Lead

‍'Our platform is built by default to handle cross-border, cross-product and cross-partnership programs. That means that everytime we configure something in the platform, it’s on these three variables. When you try to roll out a cross-border program, you face different tax problems, commissions and even product coverages in different countries. That’s one layer of complexity – and if you add multiple balance sheets, bordeaux or even TPAs, you get into a whole spaghetti. We have one platform to orchestrate all of those localities in one place.' - Baudouin de La Rochefoucauld, Strategic Partnerships Lead

‍

Curious what else we can do for the insurance ecosystem? Get more information or get in touch.