Changing financial perceptions and making ‘Insurance’ palatable for a millennial appetite

Key Findings

In FY 2017, direct business transactions owed for ~31% of the overall non-life insurance policies sold in India. People prefer buying insurance policies through direct business distribution channels because of its fast and easy process.

For Toffee’s highest-selling product ‘Cycle Insurance’, the survey reports conducted my them indicated that 15% of buyers are under the age of 25, 6% of consumers are between 25-35 yrs, 55% of the consumers are from Non-metro cities (Avg population of 1 million) and 75% of the consumers have access to email.

Context

Toffee Insurance is an all-digital Insurtech startup offering unique and simple solutions to millennials to fit their lifestyle and daily needs. The Gurgaon-based insurance technology startup was founded with the vision of making insurance honest through accessible, efficient, and affordable products for frequent, non-critical day-to-day risks. Risks that millennials could easily identity within their daily lives, as opposed to more long-term risks that involved getting term insurance or life insurance.

The company’s differentiator was a focus on creating bite-sized insurance covers for immediate lifestyle needs such losses or damages to bicycles, backpacks, injuries from the gym, running or daily commutes, and mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya. Leveraging a digital-first model, ‘Toffee Insurance’ uses behavioral & consumption data to co-create insurance products and abilities aided by artificial intelligence, machine learning and a substantially wide distribution network of over 4000+ point of sale outlets across 300+ cities. Toffee Insurance reimagines how insurance is perceived and bought in metros as well as tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

The Problem

Insurance is perceived as something boring and non-relatable to millennials. They do not feel long-term threats, but instead recognize more short-term challenges from their daily routines, commutes and lifestyles. Thus this market had been screaming for innovation to make insurance a millennial’s choice. This perception had to be broken and the startup needed to be positioned as an innovator in its market.

The Brief

Our brief was to launch this startup and break stereotypes about insurance, making it more relatable to a millennial audience. We were to create a substantial hype about the company, that would result in tangible sales for the company.

The PR Strategy

Wishbox chalked out a strategic plan for Toffee Insurance by keeping their USP ‘Bite-sized policies’, a niche category at the center of the plan. We also emphasized on the fact that all the policies at Toffee Insurance were tailor-made keeping in mind a fast-paced, modern lifestyle while addressing micro-sized and easily accessible insurance policies as the need of the hour. We worked progressively towards creating a robust communication outreach and presented them as the pioneers in the growing Insurtech sector.

Understanding the needs of Toffee Insurance, the Wishbox team identified their bigger goals and worked back towards achieving them, by dividing the communications plan into various successive phases.

Wishbox helped the brand in amplifying their vision and developing its image as a pioneer in the Insurtech industry. The agency not only helped Toffee showcase its unique product offerings that were utterly relevant to the Millenials and Gen Z  but also created a strong narrative for Toffee Insurance as the new age insurer creating insurance products that are accessible, efficient & affordable to the next half billion uninsured consumers. With players like Digit and Acko existing in the Insurtech market, the Wishbox team positioned Toffee Insurance as the trailblazer in reinventing the insurtech space with tailored Bite-sized products.

To get a strong and steady stream of media attention for this upcoming brand in the market team Wishbox boosted Toffee Insurance’s presence in the business press and highlighted how it is a disruptor in its domain. This approach helped the brand in highlighting its vast offerings and achieve a top-of-mind recall value across the country.

Our Approach

As a strategic communication partner, we divided our approach into various phases. The initial approach included highlighting the vast line of bite-sized products like Cycle insurance, International travel insurance, backpack insurance, Dengue Insurance, Renters Insurance, Salary Protect plan etc. The products were pitched extensively in the media and gained substantial traction and media coverage. Cyclist insurance being their hot selling product got featured in Cat A publications like The Economic Times, Forbes, Business Today. Other products were also talked about in feature stories of Times of India, Mint, The Hindu Business Line etc.

The second phase was to pitch the brand from a corporate angle, showcasing it as a consumer brand focussing on the lifestyle needs of the people of all age groups. The products offered by Toffee Insurance are very well thought of and designed in a way to fulfil the needs specifically of Millenials and Gen Z. The same idea was presented to the media through various concept notes and pitches. This ideology was well accepted by the media and got Toffee a lot of recognition.

Heading in the third phase included positioning the spokesperson Rohan Kumar as the thought leader in the said domain. Various relationship-building meetings and personal interviews were conducted in order to familiarize the media with the brand and the spokesperson. This initiative helped the brand in building strong connections with the media and educating them thoroughly about the goals and strategies of the brand. Authored articles by the spokespersons from both business and lifestyle angles were also a great hit. All these activities led to personal finance beat journalists taking quotes of the CEO in all the trend stories.

Going ahead we expanded our focus on the other spokespersons of the brand like the CFO, CTO and Chief Distribution officers. We were able to garner opportunities for them to represent the brand in panel discussion, summits and authored articles in finance and tech publications.

Result

Toffee Insurance has garnered ample media coverage and established itself as one of the top and most innovative Insurtech Startups in India. Wishbox team was successfully able to put across the Toffee Insurance’s USP- ‘Bite-Sized Insurance’ thus generating a top of the mind recall value amongst the media and the public. This acted as a catalyst of a shift in the perception of insurance to being more relatable and immediate. It had more appeal to a younger audience.

Rohan Kumar was positioned as the thought leader in the industry with exclusive personal interviews featured in top publications like Forbes.in, Business Today, Mint, The Hindu Business line, Economic Times, Outlook India etc. In order to exhibit Rohan as a dynamic entrepreneur, Wishbox team also garnered soft profiling features in The Hindu Business Line and The Entrepreneur.  Rohan was also quoted in numerous industry stories in Mint, Economic Times, Outlook Money, Hindustan Times, ET tech for his expert opinion. Wishbox team also got the co founders featured in CNBC Awaaz for the show ‘Startup Nation‘, where Rohan and Nishant got a chance to talk about their journey, products, business challenges and road ahead.