"Love and marriage,
Love and marriage,
Go together like a horse & carriage...."
I am sure I'm dating myself here, but do you remember the series "Married with Children" and their opening song?
That "horse & carriage" analogy is the case with BMW and fintech, as well - and how interesting we're talking about a "horseless carriage", too, isn't it?! Anyhoo, we reported back in July 2016 that BMW was getting into the fintech business with the launch of a corporate funded innovation lab around fintechs targeting the auto sector that could offer fresh perspectives around auto financing and insurance.
Now comes word that the carmaker’s British financial division is using insurtech startup Wrisk to offer auto insurance BMW & Mini customers throurghout their UK division.
We admire when fintech innovation meets modern day practicality, and such is the case here with the corporate titan's funding of an innovation lab to help advance their financing needs.
Cindy Taylor/Publisher
"...Last year, BMW Financial Services completed its first Innovation Lab division, which aims to find innovative technology for the fintech sector. One of the graduates is Wrisk, a customer-facing app that enables customers to apply for bespoke insurance policies that can be managed online. It allows customers to enter details like job and lifestyle, to create a tailored insurance package for car, home or travel.
This type of app falls in the fintech sub-group known as insurtech, which sees challenger companies focus on consumer-friendly technology in the insurance sector. According to the World insurance report 2017 from Capgemini and banking and insurance association Efma, which surveyed 8,000 people globally, 31% of people already receive insurance products through insurtechs.
Through Wrisk, customers can buy and manage multiple types of insurance in a single plan. It replaces the traditional way the company offered insurance, which involved lots of manual form filling and other processes for customers and dealers.
The platform was developed while Wrisk was on the BMW startup programme where they received mentoring.
Philip Kerry, sales and marketing director at BMW Financial Services UK, said the innovation programme was set up to try to find answers to certain business challenges. These challenges included making better use of the data within the business as well as rental models..."
Full Story at ComputerWeekly