Tech and home insurance are usually not something talked about together but a new start-up called Honey Insurance is changing all that by giving customers smart home sensors to help keep them safe and prevent avoidable incidents.
This smarter cover approach has a number of benefits.
Having smart sensors offering appropriate notifications helps home owners minimise risks and stay safer.
For example, a smart smoke detector can help you avert disaster, another sensor could provide a heads up about a potentially damaging water leak and motion sensors can detect intruders.
And the result are less claims which lead to cheaper premiums.
The Honey Insurance approach is to flip the traditional insurance model on its head and offer smart technology to its customers to keep them safe from day one of their coverage.
A recent YouGov survey showed Australians, who already love smart technology, would switch to a new insurance company if they could receive free home sensors and cameras to keep them safer.
Customers who take up a Honey Insurance home and contents policy are provided with $250 worth of smart sensors for free to help monitor those avoidable mishaps.
Research by Finity showed that 50 per cent of insurance claims are avoidable.
By providing smart sensors, Honey Insurance is investing in their customers to reduce risks and stay safer.
And as soon as the sensors are installed, Honey Insurance customers are rewarded with an 8 per cent discount on their premium and for each year they stay connected.
Alarmingly, 80 per cent of Australians are under insured according to a study commissioned by Understand Insurance which costs Australians more than $1.5bn in out-of-pocket expenses.
Honey Insurance also uses satellite data to see home improvements like extensions and a new swimming pool and automatically adjust a customer’s policy to reflect the changes and saves the inconvenience of out-of-pocket expenses.
And the company is also moving with the times to provide protection for how customers are living today and turned their place into a work-from-home office.
“There are so many great things about living in Australia but applying for home and contents insurance felt like travelling back in time thirty years,” said Richard Joffe, Founder and CEO of Honey Insurance.
“The sign-up process was slow, unsophisticated and left me totally clueless as to whether I had the right level of protection or not. I knew there had to be a smarter way.
“We use smart data to simplify a process that’s currently far too confusing than it needs to be, and to ensure our cover is fast and easy to buy, always fairly priced and it’s simple to make a claim.”
Honey Insurance was founded after securing $15.5m in seed funding – the largest seed round in Australia for a technology company.
And like every other successful start-up, Honey Insurance is disrupting the $10bn home insurance market which is dominated by a handful of old-school players.
“At Honey Insurance we invest in our customers by giving them smart technology for the simple fact that 50% of insurance claims are avoidable,” Joffe continued.
“We believe providing protection upfront is just as important as being there for them in the event of a claim. How many other insurance companies do you know that will literally pay out on day one?”
Honey Insurance is underwritten by industry giant RACQ.
“RACQ is pleased to be partnering with Honey Insurance as it innovates, helps customers reduce risk in their lives, and delivers peace of mind. Investing in Honey Insurance is an opportunity to share in the innovation and increase the scale of our insurance portfolio to benefit our 1.8 million members and their communities,” said RACQ CEO David Carter.
