BizCover has announced the launch of its business insurance platform in South Africa. The Australian Insurtech’s fully contestable online platform will feature business insurance products from South African insurers Hollard Insurance and Discovery Insure, with more insurers to join soon.
Together they will make it easier for SMEs to compare, buy and manage their business insurance.
The platform will be known locally as Bi-me (Business Insurance Made Easy). The opportunity aligns with BizCover’s strategy of expanding its geographic and channel footprint by leveraging strategic partnerships in international markets.
BizCover is headquartered in Sydney and has operations in San Francisco and Auckland.
The venture will be headed up locally in South Africa by Francois Potgieter, ex-Chief Operating Officer of Hollard Insurance and a Non-Executive Director of Discovery Insure.
“Like many countries around the world, commercial insurance in South Africa has not seen the digital transformation that general insurance has experienced and is still very manual and time consuming.
With around 2.25 million small businesses in South Africa, we see huge potential to disrupt this space and allow SMEs to compare, buy and manage their insurance, online and in real time,” said Francois Potgieter.
Although it will be managed and operated locally, the service will use the BizCover technology platform and the company’s expertise in marketing, sales and operations of online business insurance, which have helped establish BizCover as a global leader in the SME business insurance space.
The BizCover platform has given SMEs a transparent way to compare their options and has empowered them to cover the risks they want to cover with the insurers they choose. BizCover currently has 177,000 SMEs insured through its platform globally and has processed 650,000 policies using its proprietary technology.
BizCover CEO Michael Gottlieb, said, “We are extremely excited about this joint venture, as it provides further endorsement that BizCover’s technology is the leading fully-customisable, full-lifecycle platform that can be easily implemented across international jurisdictions. It is the next stage in our global expansion plans.
We are excited to be doing this with trusted Insurers, including Hollard who has been an insurance carrier on the Australian BizCover platform for six years. South Africa is a fast-growing insurance market with businesses open to adopting innovative propositions.
The South African insurance market also has many insurance practices and standards in common with several other geographies around the world making it a very attractive expansion market for BizCover.”
Richard Enthoven, Managing Director Hollard Holdings Australia, added, “As a partner of BizCover in Australia, I have seen the success of the business driven by their ability to continue to innovate within the SME space which has resulted in an outstanding customer experience and also their ability to work closely with their Insurers like us to help deliver relevant and profitable products to market.
I am excited to see the BizCover model expanding to South Africa with quality Underwriters like Discovery Insure and Hollard, as there is a massive opportunity to disrupt a very traditional and sizeable industry that has not yet embraced technology.”
