Keletso Mpisane, MiWay Blink

Before launching Naked Insurance, Ernest North and his co-founders worked in traditional insurance businesses and had witnessed first-hand where these companies were failing consumers. The thinking around the move to start Naked, says North, was that consumers’ needs are changing and the industry needed to keep pace. “For a long time, we were advising insurers that a fundamental overhaul was needed. The more we worked with these traditional players, the more we realised that their gradual approach to the transformation of their legacy systems and processes was simply not going to cut it because technology was moving so fast that they’d never be able to keep up.”

Consumers don’t want to sift through paperwork, or wait several weeks for their cover to be approved. They also don’t want to pay a monthly premium for something they only use every other week. They want freedom, flexibility and transparency, and they want their cover to be suited to their unique needs, says North. Insurers are now able to offer consumers a bespoke, self-service experience and do so more affordably, he says, adding that much of Naked’s offering is automated. “Everything happens online, from risk assessments and issuing policies to claims and payments without any need for human intervention. This means that we can dramatically reduce our backend costs and then pass on these savings to our customers by offering them lower premiums,” he says.