Bubble, a Cupertino, Calif.-based InsurTech distributor, has launched its Insurance-in-a-Box offering, which enables mortgage and real estate companies to embed homeowners’ and life insurance into real estate transactions. The launch follows Bubble’s $1.75 million pre-seed funding round led by The House Fund with participation from Tuesday Capital, Correlation Ventures, and North Coast Ventures.
Bubble’s describes the embedded Insurance-in-a-Box offering as including widgets, APIs, and white-labeled or co-branded consumer sites and referral URLs that real estate companies can use to embed accurate home and life insurance quotes into home and loan purchase flows. Combining data from home and mortgage transactions with its own extensive database and proprietary analytics, Bubble says it delivers custom-tailored quotes in real-time. Through the distributor’s online portal, customers can further personalize their coverage, maximize discounts, complete their applications, and have their policies approved and issued in a matter of minutes, a Bubble statement says.
With real estate and mortgage companies serving as distribution channels for Bubble, Bubble in turn serves as agency distributor to its carrier partners. The process involves an AI-guided recommendation engine—Bubble LifePal—which identifies products with optimal coverage from Stillwater Insurance (Jacksonville, Fla.) for homeowner’s insurance along with SBLI (Woburn, Mass.) and Pacific Life (Newport, Calif.) for term life. Through Bubble’s platform, mortgage and real estate customers are presented with transparent, personalized insurance packages during the sales process, and often are able to get underwriting decisions and have their policies issued, all online in minutes, according to Bubble.
“We are excited to offer our range of home insurance products on Bubble’s all-digital platform,” comments Alisa Ruenprapan, VP, Inside Sales and Sales Systems, Stillwater. “Bubble’s intuitive online flows demystify the process while giving users the flexibility to customize coverages to their needs. Together with Bubble, we’re making insurance buying as easy as pie.”
On the theory that home ownership is a key catalyst to life insurance purchase, Bubble pairs two term life products suited for younger home buyers: Next by Pacific Life & SBLI’s Simplified Issue Term Life.
Perfect Entry Point
“With Next Term Life, you don’t have to anticipate the future and buy more life insurance than you need,” explains Joe Kordovi, AVP, Innovations, Pacific Life. “You start with the coverage you need today and can increase or decrease at key life events, such as buying a house, without additional underwriting. It’s an innovative product that lets you ‘lock in’ your health rating, typically when you’re young and healthy. Bubble’s online platform that integrates life insurance at this key milestone is the perfect entry point for Next Term Life.”
The SBLI term life policy offered through Bubble includes a fluid-less underwriting process and provides instant online decisions in minutes—a feature that Bubble characterizes as suitable to the needs and convenience of home buyers.
“SBLI is very happy to work with Bubble and offer a unique and simplified issue digital term insurance solution to Bubble customers through this valuable partnership,” Denis Clifford, SVP, Sales & Distribution, SBLI. “This strategic collaboration supports SBLI’s continued commitment to build diversification in both our product and digital distribution areas.”
Bubble Co-founder & CEO Avi Gupta characterizes the platform’s role as streamlining the natural flow of life events: starting a family, buying a home, insuring it, and insuring everyone living there. “Millennials especially stand to reap the benefits of bundling life and home insurance while they’re young and healthy,” Gupta says. “They can lock in a great rate for the next several decades. Our mission is to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for them to do that.”
From the perspective of Bubble’s real estate company partners’ objectives, Insurance-in-a-Box helps them minimize friction and speed transactions by enabling customers to quickly get insurance when they’re buying a home. Lenders and loan servicers also mitigate the risk of default with term life policies covering borrowers. The Bubble statement notes that these companies in the housing ecosystem can even monetize insurance by sharing commission splits or referral fees with Bubble under certain circumstances.
Leapfrogging into the Digital World
“As mortgage brokers for nearly 20 years, partnering with Bubble allows us to leapfrog our offerings into the digital world with a completely online experience for personalized home and life insurance,” says Dan Zettler, partner, Barnstable Mortgage Group. “Taking the pain and hassle out of insurance purchases is a no-brainer!”
Source: Insurance Innovation Reporter
