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How embedded insurance is changing the face of regulation & compliance
Thursday 25 May
1:00 PM CEST
Rewire knows that there’s a lot at stake for its community of migrant workers. This key audience often leaves their home country to pursue more financial stability elsewhere, while sending regular remittance payments to their families back home.
In order to provide a holistic migration package, Rewire knew that accident insurance had to be part of the mix. Not only does it protect the migrant worker, but it also safeguards crucial income for their loved ones.
So they set out in search of a ‘solid and reliable insurtech partner’ to come up with a solution. Through Rewire’s collaboration with Qover, they launched accident protection across 18 countries in February 2022.
We spoke to (now former) Rewire CEO & Co-founder Guy Kashtan about understanding their customers’ needs, the role of insurance in the drive for social-good and what’s next on the horizon.
Covid has accelerated digital transformation, but fintechs are facing challenges that mostly have to do with trust – this isn’t only about people’s money, it’s about their stability and future.
Modern digital trends such as bundling services and embedded finance opportunities are shaping the industry landscape and requiring fintech companies to reinvent the way their services are offered and used.
Looking into remittance specifically, we see that providing customers with value over time comes from providing multiple services and bundles rather than just remittance – services that are not only unique, but also tailored to the specific needs of the target audience. Offering insurance – and later, credit – could solve the question of unique value proposition.
At Rewire we see that remittance is much more than the transferring of funds from one place to another. It represents someone’s connection to their family back home and allows people who moved halfway across the world to still care for their loved ones – perhaps even more so than if they still lived in their country of origin.
We see insurance in a very similar way – it allows people to enjoy the peace of mind that can only come from knowing their family is being taken care of, especially in case something happens to them.
In a word: yes. We listen to anything our customers have to say and pay special attention to the things they do not say.
We make sure to conduct periodical focus groups, hire people from within the communities and hold special positions for community managers who are in touch with the people using Rewire, that way we can grow our product portfolio based on our customers’ actual needs.
Offering insurance as part of our product came from the untold need of our customers to make sure their family is protected, no matter what. For example, we see a surge in requests for help around different types of emergencies such as natural disasters or even private crises such as the hospitalisation of a family member.
This led to fruitful conversations with our customers on how to better prepare for those types of situations as well as the importance of having insurance. In a way, providing this type of coverage is a love letter from us to our customers.
What is the business rationale for implementing insurance? How does it support your growth?
The rationale comes from our double bottom line business model which sees positive social impact as equally important as fiscal growth.
As mentioned, offering insurance is one of the ways we give value to our customers – knowing that migrants from developing countries who usually move for work are leaving their families behind in hopes of providing them with a better, more financially secure future.
And what happens if – god forbid – the migrant is involved in an accident and is disabled, or worse? What would their family back home do? They’ve lost a loved one but also need to face the financial burden of caring for the loved one or making travel arrangements for them. Moreover, the family probably lost its main source of income and is left without financial support.
In that sense, providing insurance aligns with our social-good values. It's a way for us to care for our customers and their families, but also to give our customers much-needed peace of mind knowing that their family is covered [if they’re involved in an accident].
From a purely business perspective, we automatically cover our customers at no extra cost. This incentivises loyalty since all the customer needs to do is continue using our remittance service at a minimum of €200 a month, which is something that most already do.
Naturally, the first aspects we noticed are the ones we have in common, such as a customer-centric approach and positive social impact aspirations. Promoting financial inclusion for migrants is Rewire’s biggest passion, which we share with Qover.
Along with customer-centric approaches, fast time-to-market and agile methodology in both companies, we see this partnership as a strategic milestone both in Rewire’s path to providing its customers with a holistic migration package and in promoting financial inclusion.
Qover’s great UX and the fact that absolutely everything can be done online, combined with its Pan-European presence, sealed the deal.
When creating tailor-made services, you first need to understand what’s behind your customers’ decision-making process as well as their needs and motivations.
At Rewire, these are very clear: our customers are migrant workers who want to build a better, more financially secure future for themselves and their families. Their entire mission abroad is always accompanied by the desire to support their families.
From the outset, this was clearly a joint mission. It wasn’t Rewire and Qover, it was ‘us’ and our mutual vision.
Knowing our customers, we had to figure out what would be the most accurate coverage for their needs. At this point we asked ourselves: what happens if the migrant is unable to work? What emotional and financial impact does this have on both our customers and their families? In case of accidental death, would they need to fly the migrant’s body back to their country of origin? What happens if the migrant has an accident and is disabled?
Raising these questions together with Qover is how we ended up with a tailored insurance offering that is relevant to each and every person who uses Rewire. We were very impressed with Qover’s attentiveness, attention to detail and how responsive the team was to our customers’ needs.
We want to provide even more value, and the insurance arena is vast enough to be able to create services that are relevant to our customers’ unique, cross-border needs.
As Rewire customers are migrants from various countries, naturally, their financial needs and activities vary. Thus, we plan to provide a layered service that answers the needs of each type of consumer and provides them with coverage that suits them.
Another aspect is insurance that covers a person’s daily needs such as a doctor’s appointments, check-ups, procedures, etc.
Exciting times ahead! We will continue to lead remittance cost reductions and strive towards additional bundling of services. All this, while creating strategic partnerships that will enable us to provide more value for our customers and open the door to a significant, new user base.
As always, our number one priority is our customers. We will continue to make financial services more accessible to migrants while keeping their unique cross-border needs in mind – this is our guiding light.
