Outsurance vs MiWay Blink — why insurance apps are the future

Insurance apps offer a streamlined method of getting insurance quotes from reputable companies without having to spend 30 minutes or more on the phone with a consultant, MyBroadband found during a recent comparison.

A number of insurance apps available in the country allow you to take out cover for your car or home contents in just a few minutes, including Naked Insurance, MiWay Blink, and Pineapple.

These apps use algorithms which can assess a user’s risk profile and calculate a premium without the need for any human intervention.

Naked Insurance, which is underwritten by Hollard, was among the first to bring one of these apps to market, offering the ability to take out car insurance by texting a chat bot called Rose.

The bot asks questions about your car, driving history and other personal details, and generates a quote based on your responses.

Naked has since added the ability to take out insurance on home contents as well.

Recently, MiWay launched MiWay Blink, which calculates a quote by asking only a few questions on sliding app pages.

We decided to test these apps and see how they compare with the experience of an insurer that still uses old fashioned phone calls to get people covered. We chose popular insurer Outsurance as the benchmark for our test.

To ensure a fair comparison, we used the same 2014 VW Polo sedan and driver details for all three quote requests.

Naked was the first app we tried out.

To start, you have to create a profile using your name, surname, email address, and cell number.

Once this was completed, you are presented with the option to insure either a car or home contents.

After selecting the car option, your are presented with a chat interface similar to WhatsApp or FaceBook Messenger, where Rose greets you and starts asking questions.

She started by asking for the manufacturing year, car make, and model of the vehicle we wanted to ensure.

All of these we could choose from a set of provided options which were generated as we typed.

Rose then continued to confirm details such as where the car would be kept overnight, who would be driving it most of the time, and whether the car was used for work purposes.

Once the car-related questions were completed, the conversation was shifted to insurance and driving history, which included how long you have been insured and whether you have been convicted for drunk driving before.

Finally, you are asked to provide your ID number for a credit check. Naked offered a R909 per month premium for comprehensive cover with an excess payment of R5,000.

Naked Insurance app process — chatting with Rose (Click to enlarge)

Naked Insurance app process — quote of R909 per month for comprehensive cover (Click to enlarge)

Next up was MiWay blink.

MiWay’s app requires that you confirm up-front that you are the regular driver, don’t use the vehicle for business purposes, have never been refused cover or had your policy cancelled, and that your car wasn’t modified to boost performance.

After providing your name and cell number, you are asked to enter your car’s licence plate number. The app then returns all of your car’s details including its manufacturing year, make, and model.

The app then asks for your incident history before requesting your ID number to do a credit check.

MiWay Blink offered a quote of R851.51 for comprehensive cover, with a R5,000 excess. However, for the vehicle we tested with it also required that we buy a Netstar tracker at R129 per month due to the risk profile of the car.

MiWay Blink application process (Click to enlarge)

MiWay Blink final quote — R851.51, excluding Netstar tracker requirement (Click to enlarge)

The entire process for both apps took less than 5 minutes each.

For Outsurance, we visited the company’s website and completed an online quote form consisting of 7 pages to try and save time. It took about 10 minutes to fill in the form.

After submitting all the required details, a message informed us that we will be called by a consultant to confirm our quote amount.

Sure enough, within a few seconds Outsurance called.

However, rather than just providing the quote amount, the consultant first confirmed all of the details we had already provided on the form.

The consultant then asked for further information which went far beyond anything requested by the MiWay and Naked apps, such as:

• When did you first started driving?
• Did you previously drive a car insured by your parents?
• The rough amount of the insurance payout for past incidents.
• The amount still owed on any currently financed vehicle.
• Marital status.
• Occupation, and where you are based.
• How often you use your cellphone while driving.
• Average kilometres you drive every year.

Ultimately, Outsurance quoted just over R1,200 per month, with an excess payment of R4,890.

While the premium was reasonably comparable with those generated by the MiWay and Naked apps, the overall process took much longer.

The table below provides a comparison of the experiences getting insurance quotes for the same car and driver on Naked Insurance, MiWay Blink, and Outsurance.

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