South African insurance giant Hollard Group has invested significantly in insurtech firm Simply Financial Services, aiming to revolutionize the country’s mass-market life insurance sector.
Simply Financial, founded by entrepreneurs Anthony Miller and actuary Simon Nicholson, offers innovative life, disability, and funeral cover solutions for individuals and businesses.
Starting with direct life, disability and funeral cover for individuals and domestic workers, the Simply team made a significant move into the SME and broker spaces in 2020. Their model redefines the traditional approach to life insurance for lower- and middle-income earners, using proprietary technology and intuitive design to deliver flexible, affordably-priced retail and group policies with high persistency rates.
Says Simply Co-founder Anthony Miller, “The current model for long term insurance in the mass market is unsustainable – there’s an oversupply of expensive, standalone retail products, especially funeral cover, with high policyholder churn and, ultimately, low value for money for customers.
“Simply turns that model on its head by offering customers combinations of benefits – such as life, disability and funeral cover – and getting employers to pay the premiums where possible. Thanks to good retention rates, our solutions deliver good customer outcomes when it counts – whether it’s our novel group option, which is typically cheaper, or our retail option, which allows for more flexibility.
Hollard’s investment will propel Simply Financial to expand its customer base and enhance its digital insurance offerings.
Hollard Group CEO, Willie Lategan is excited by the partnership.“Hollard has always been an active supporter of innovative and disruptive insurance models and has a strong track record of investing in Insurtechs to keep ahead of industry trends while meeting consumers’ real insurance needs. We particularly like that Simply is already at critical mass and has a strong track record of delivery to customers.
“We believe Simply’s “superpowers” – their proprietary technology platform and end-to-end insurance capabilities – will be a valuable addition to Hollard’s stable. Simply’s business enables rapid deployment of new products and features, which will both fuel Simply’s growth and further enhance Hollard’s partnership offerings.
Miller concludes that having the backing of South Africa’s largest privately owned insurer will help enable the business export its model to other markets and deliver on its mission “to protect the financial futures of millions”.
