In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL interviews Janthana Kaenprakhamroy, co-founder and CEO of Tapoly, an on-demand gig economy worker InsurTech UK startup. In this interview, Sabine and Janthana discuss business model innovation, target market and customer segmentation, and what building a lifestyle brand in insurance means. They finally cover company culture, talent acquisition, and founding a business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Tapoly came about because I was so surprised with how backward we were in terms of offering insurance and the whole end-to-end process for gig economy workers and micro-businesses. This was an industry in which I thought I could add value.
• Tapoly is a very timely and much-needed platform because we are able to operate at a micro-premium level that some traditional players may not be interested or capable of delivering. Our fully-automated process where we use technology to drive our pricing and underwriting means it’s easier for us to gain that economy of scale and save costs even if the transaction is much lower than a traditional player would want to underwrite. This is needed because someone needs to serve these customers.
• We differentiate ourselves from our peers by our product differentiation, our approach – which is from the customer angle, looking at their profile and asking ourselves what we need to do in order to get the relevant insurance to cover our clients’ flexible lifestyles. To cover this you need to expand your product range and list of carriers, which is time-consuming and costly. The next stage is to grow our business.
• Gig workers could work three jobs, each job with a very different risk profile, so it’s very hard to buy coverage to cover all three risks. Offering an on-demand, usage-based solution relevant for a variety of activities will help the insured and us so that we know what risks we are taking as opposed to getting a surprise when the client claims for something which is obviously not covered by the policy.

 

BEST MOMENT

‘What’s needed in the insurance space is a joined-up system that tracks every single transaction from every single source. That’s why Tapoly has gone from being a reach-out player offering micro-insurances to moving up the chain.’
‘Our gig workers include either micro-business, sole traders or freelancers that are difficult to make a profit from but need insurance to cover core products like employer liabilities for businesses that everyone must have. There are also professional indemnity public liability and other add-ons that may be relevant to their business activity and risk profile.’
‘I’m a first-time founder as well as being a female, and on top of that I didn’t have much insurance experience when I started, and the profit margins are small on microinsurance products. A lot of investors would prefer to invest in a company with larger margins and at a more mature stage of development, still, we are hopeful that we can prove to them that we are one of the valuable platforms that they should invest in.’
‘I chose my co-founder, Sam, based on three aspects: Skill to add value, work ethic, and his ability to financially support the business when needed We both chose our team based on the talent that we know we needed, and individuals that we could coach and teach so they don’t pick up any bad habits. The experience was not necessary for us. An interest in the business and high work ethics were key.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Janthana Kaenprakhamroy is one of the Top 10 Insurtech Female Influencers as ranked by The Insurance Institute.
Founder of Tapoly, the first on-demand insurance platform for the gig economy in Europe, as seen in the Top 100 European Fintech Awards 2017. Chartered accountant and former investment banking professional. Janathana was also one of the co-authors of the InsurTECH Book.

Website: https://www.tapoly.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janthana-kaenprakhamroy-0b73546b/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. 

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