swiftcover.com launches innovative new home insurance service
Monday, 26 July 2010
swiftcover.com, the UK’s first online only car insurance provider, is launching a new home insurance service that it says will shake up the home insurance market in the same way its car insurance did, by getting rid of call centres and giving consumers a simple and fast online quote.
swiftcover.com has gone back to the drawing board with its buildings and contents policies, making the quote process quicker and clearer and by ensuring that consumers only pay for cover on the things they really want to insure.
The company says that most standard home insurance policies include cover for things many householders don’t need, such as cover for children living away from home as students, which is a worthless extra cost for householders who don’t have grown up children at university or college. On the other hand, swiftcover.com points out, many standard home policies include limited cover for items such as bicycles or garden furniture, and because the limits are often so low and there are many restrictions, when policyholders claim, the pay-out they receive is much lower than they expect – if they get paid out at all.
In contrast, swiftcover.com offers excellent cover as standard and then provides a number of ‘bolt-on’ options for people who want additional cover such as for bikes, items in the garden or dependants living away from home. In addition the application form has been designed from scratch to be straightforward and quick to complete. It provides contextual help, such as photographs, to help consumers answer often confusing questions, and it removes many ambiguous questions such as those relating to the types of locks people have in their home and their occupation.
James Barclay, home underwriting manager at swiftcover.com, says: “we are taking a new approach to home insurance, designed to make buying a policy more straightforward for consumers and ensuring they get excellent value for money by only paying for the cover they really need.”
“Unlike car insurance, consumers do not switch their buildings and contents insurance very often because people feel it’s a hassle and because the quote and buying process can be such hard work with certain insurers. As a result the market has become stagnant, so swiftcover.com wants to shake it up by using the same hassle-free online approach that we pioneered with car insurance, and by proving that switching your home insurance provider is quick, easy and could save you money”
Traditionally, home insurance policies are based on a standard policy template which is issued to all policyholders with a list of exemptions detailing the things that consumers are not covered for, which can make the process of reading and understanding a policy very confusing. By comparison, swiftcover.com policyholders will be issued with policy documents that are tailored to their requirements and provide information only on the cover they have selected, making it a lot easier for people to understand the cover they have in place.
As with car insurance, swiftcover.com home insurance customers will purchase, make changes to their policy and submit a claim entirely online. By cutting out expensive time-wasting call centres, swiftcover.com can pass on this saving to its customers in the form of cheaper premiums, enabling them to save time and money.
swiftcover.com home insurance is being officially launched on Tuesday 27th July.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For press enquiries please contact:
Paul Beadle or Joshua Van Raalte
Brazil (PR agency for swiftcover.com)
01865 556 000
swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
About swiftcover:
Based in Cobham, Surrey and employing over 800 people, www.swiftcover.com started trading in June 2005 and was born out of a desire to revolutionise the general insurance market.
swiftcover.com offers car, travel and pet insurance online, and is Britain's only insurance company without call centres, which means that the cost savings can be passed directly onto the customer and premiums are kept low. In 2008 swiftcover.com featured as the cheapest insurance quote on the comparison website moneysupermarket.com more often than any other insurer.
This powerful operating model combined with successful marketing and competitive pricing has proven to be a tremendous success. In 2008 swiftcover.com achieved over half a million live policies and in May 2009 sold their one millionth policy. They are considered to be the fastest-growing insurer in the UK.
In 2007, AXA UK acquired swiftcover.com. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Insurance UK PLC which forms part of AXA Group.
About AXA:
AXA UK is a part of the AXA Group. AXA is a world leader in financial protection. AXA’s operations are diverse with major operations in Western Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific area. AXA employs 120,000 staff and tied agents and, as of June 30 2006, had €1,091 billion in assets under management. AXA reported total IFRS revenues of €72 billion and IFRS underlying earnings of €3,258 million for the full year 2005. Our previous company performance is not a guide to how we may perform in the future.
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