Zing is a fast-scaling, advanced insurtech backed by leading global insurers. At our core is what matters most to our customers and partners. Embedded at the e-commerce checkout of leading retail brands that our customers already know, use and trust, Zing takes away the hassle of insurance. Fully integrated with our partners’ platforms, Zing’s coverage is intuitively matched to the insurance our customers need at the point of purchase, hire or share. Zing takes the customer experience beyond the checkout, making insurance as easy as shopping.
More consumers are shopping online and making related financial decisions at the ecommerce checkout. In the UK alone, direct to consumer sales online totalled £197bn in 2019. And as well as consumers’ clear appetite to shop online, it is equally clear that shoppers are motivated to make financial decisions as part of the checkout experience. Some 5m people in the UK, that’s 11% of UK consumers, used a BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) product in 2020. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by ecommerce retailers, who have realised that embedding BNPL products from companies such as Klarna can drive up customer commitment and frequency and value of purchase.
Yet this is an opportunity to broaden accessibility and inclusivity that has been largely missed by the insurance industry. Whilst the majority of consumer insurance cover is purchased online, the online insurance market is confusing, dominated by generic products, confusing applications, mystifying policy documents and an overwhelming reliance on margin eroding price comparison. It is also generally wholly disconnected from the retail environments favoured by its actual or potential customers. Despite all this, UK household insurance spend (excluding motor) totalled £5.1bn in 2021.
Zing is filling this void. Zing has created a complete consumer insurance platform, acquiring customers with just one click at the e-commerce checkout of leading retail brands.
Zing has created insurance that’s accessible. Our branded cover is embedded on our partner retailers’ ecommerce sites at the product review page, alongside or prior to finance and BNPL offers. Our API seamlessly matches products and retail prices to truly relevant insurance, and our customers can add insurance cover to their purchase with a single click. This is an end to endless questions and forms.
Zing has created insurance that’s relevant. Our intuitive modular product design means our customers receive insurance that truly resonates with their purchase. We do not simply match customers with an ‘off the shelf’ product from a traditional insurer. We create our own products that are tailored to the products and activities people buy and hire online. And our customers can easily add to their cover when shopping with any Zing partner retailer, adding their cover to their existing Zing account with one single monthly subscription. Our intuitive Zing customer portal empowers our customers to manage, grow and customise their cover, and make claims, all in one place.
Zing has created insurance that’s transparent. We don’t believe in small print, product summaries or mystifying terms and conditions. Our terms and conditions are set out to inform our customers clearly and succinctly what’s covered, what’s not and anything else that must or must not be done. And furthermore, our partner retailers are also our claims partners, so if our customers need to claim they get a renewed shopping experience rather than the all too familiar insurance claims agony.
For our retail partners, Zing is about more than just an additional revenue stream. Our insurance is proven to increase buyer commitment and to improve frequency and value of purchase. Zing is also a tool for increased post-purchase interaction, delivering tailored messages and information about the products we know our customers still own, use and value. And if there’s a claim, our retailers know that their customer will come back to them for repair or replacement, rather than being sent to a competitor who happens to be on an insurer’s central purchase panel. Of course, there’s additional revenue as well, and Zing’s partner retailer profit share is multi-year and cumulative creating a powerful new subscription revenue for all our partner retailers.
And Zing has solutions for both usage and ownership economies, tailored to modern consumer behaviour. As well as embedding relevant for cover for one-off purchases, Zing provides the means of hire and share companies to offer their customers ‘pay as go’ insurance, available on demand from within their website and app. We believe that a customer that hires a bike rather than owns one should have access to just the same insurance protection, and as hire, share and subscribe models expand to include fashion, jewellery and technology, Zing is already here to support the growing usage economy.
Last, but certainly not least. Zing is creating consumer insurance that’s data rich. Zing is building an entirely new, GDPR compliant insurance data set. We don’t think a customer’s post code tells insurers who they really are. By looking at what our customers buy, from whom, when and how much, we can get a far better view of our customers to enable us to tailor cover, respond to needs and price our subscriptions fairly and sustainably.
That’s Zing, taking embedded insurance beyond the checkout.
We’ve all come up with ideas in a pub that were great at the time but, well, haven’t seemed like such a good idea the morning after! Zing is a notable exception to the rule.
Zing was born out of a conversation between co-founders Matt and Rob over a couple of drinks one evening. Matt, a guru of consumer technology, couldn’t work out why insurers were so behind the curve at presenting their products to consumers in the right place and at the right time. Rob, a veteran of the insurance industry, had been facing similar battles that very day, trying to break down some of the barriers that existed between insurers and consumer facing businesses.
The penny dropped that between them they had a lot of answers to solving these problems and they promptly mapped out the vision of Zing – a platform that would deliver relevant, modular, transparent consumer insurance through embedding it into the checkout processes of e-commerce platforms consumers already know and trust.
Between Rob’s knowledge of building insurance products and Matt’s mastery of consumer technology, the task of getting insurance that customers found relevant and transparent and making it available at the e-commerce checkout was, in many ways, the easy bit. The hard bit was making insurance that was both embedded and joined up. Consumers don’t want a myriad of different policies bought at different times. They want subscriptions that can be bought with ease at the check out, and then easily managed in one place.
Having solidified Zing’s core vision Matt and Rob set about building the platform, forming the company March 2020 and launching their first partnership with Brompton Bikes in May the following year. Also setting an industry milestone by being the first to bring insurance cover to the bicycle hire market.
Since then, Zing has expanded its technology and insurance stack to become the complete consumer insurance solution for almost any ecommerce platform. With plugins to major payment portals such as Woocommerce and Shopify, a suite of modular products suited to almost any consumer product and the backing of a major global insurer.
To find out more about what Rob and Matt have built, the enhancements it brings to the customer experience and the simplicity in which it can plug into an existing e-commerce platform,
. And, if that feels like a good fit for your business and your customers, drop us a line via our contact form or reach out to us on Linked In.
Zing is an alchemy of insurance and technology, represented in equal measure in our small team.
Rob Korzinek: Chief Executive Officer rob@zingcover.com
Rob is a seasoned insurance professional, having held senior leadership positions at Hiscox (FTSE 250) and W. R. Berkley (Fortune 500) and a former chairman of the Lloyd’s Market Association Joint Specie Committee. Prior to co-founding Zing, Rob had experience of backing, launching and acquiring innovative online and digital insurance platforms.
Matt Nunney: Chief Technology Officer matt@zingcover.com
Matt is a self-confessing technology junkie, an award winning digital marketing and consumer technology professional. Matt has previously held leadership positions at global digital marketing agencies and co-founded a leading SaaS business for the hospitality sector.
Geordie Laing: Head of Partnerships geordie@zingcover.com
Geordie has worked in insurance for over a decade for global brokerage firms and is at his happiest when out in front of clients and potential partners showing how insurance can be a force for good.
Ben Fyfe: Full Stack Developer ben@zingcover.com
Ben loves all things technology and even builds his own hardware. He makes presents for his girlfriend on his 3D printer and loves nothing more than a bit of code.
