Founded in 2005, GENRIC has built up an enviable position as a specialist insurer, partnering with Underwriting Management Agencies (UMAs), brokers and insurtech start-ups to bring niche insurance solutions to underserved markets.
GENRIC’s vision is to be recognised as the innovative, unconventional, and agile insurer that disrupts with intelligence and integrity. The business’s success is built on its unique ability to help its partners get specialised insurance products to market quickly and efficiently – supporting the UMA or broker’s specific knowledge and ideas with the ‘back-office’ needed to succeed in the market.
GENRIC and Genasys: ‘flexibility and stability’
After initial success with a wide-range of products, including traditional commercial and P&C lines, 11 years ago the business decided to focus solely on the niche insurance product sector. At the time, they had two different policy administration systems within GENRIC, each with very different functionality, which just didn’t create the centralised view they needed. They realised that having dispersed portfolios across multiple systems wasn’t the way forwards.
Carl Moodley, CIO at GENRIC, explains why they chose Genasys:
“We decided on Genasys because they provide the combination of flexibility and stability that GENRIC require. We needed the ability and freedom to build our products in a manner that supported our unique structures, would be scalable, enable our ambition to automate workflows and integrate with multiple technologies, all while still ensuring that core functionality was predictable and stable. GENRIC also looks for more than just a supplier when engaging with market, we needed a partner that we could build a relationship with and support our drive to build end-to-end solutions and develop products and solutions that no one else has.”
GENRIC opted to use Genasys as its full-stack solution, including product building, policy administration and claims functionality, including First Notification of Loss.
A true partnership
Paramount to their search for a partner in insurtech was being understood and ensuring their partner was invested in their success. Carl explains that Genasys understood and could support GENRIC’s need for agility, stability and innovation, and could support their success.
“Ultimately the decision was made based off of the fact that it’s a true partnership model. We could provide level one support and configure our own products and experiment on the system and retain the support and guidance we needed from Genasys to achieve our goals. Genasys also ticked the functionality and financial boxes for what we needed.”
While the biggest driver for GENRIC is the need for flexibility and agility, the support behind this from Genasys is testament to this partnership model. GENRIC has been able to migrate and scale incredibly complex products with ease thanks to the guidance Genasys has provided.
“To give you an example, we white-labeled one of our existing products for a new distribution channel, and within a week and a half to two weeks, we had the product in production, with a functional web-based onboarding journey and a mobile application for customers ready to take to market.
There aren’t many companies that have the ability to deliver in the timeframes that we are able to. We feel we have the ability and connection to deliver what we need to with Genasys.
Carl explains that the combination of functionality and partnership approach has not only helped GENRIC get products to market quickly, but help them differentiate in a competitive market.
“Being agile is what gives us the edge in the insurance marketplace. The driver for GENRIC’s growth was to be known as an insurer who is more agile and understanding than your traditional structures. We look for unique products and unique distribution channels. We need to be able to recognise opportunities and launch new products quickly. Our partnership and the relationship we have with Genasys supports this. We have the ability to say ‘Hey, listen we can build something unique, we can build out a process from end-to-end’ using our internal resources and with Genasys’s support, we can go to market with something no one else has done.”
“A new record” in speed to market
During the COVID-19 pandemic, GENRIC quickly recognised the need for a new insurance product in a fast-moving landscape.
The product was Pandemic Shield, a parametric product which pays a lump-sum stated benefit if the policyholder is hospitalised due to COVID-19 or any pandemic declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO). A hospital admission longer than 48 hours triggers the benefit.
They decided to bring Pandemic Shield to market to protect consumers against the financial ramifications of a COVID-19 hospitalisation, and they knew time was of the absolute essence.
We needed an insurtech partner that understood the absolute need for speed, simplicity and regulatory compliance.
GENRIC used Genasys’s Build toolkit, providing an underwriting platform and online portals that were fully compatible with their existing systems and processes using an open API.
The entire process from the initial product concept to launching live in the market was completed in 50 days, of which the technology rollout and development based on the Genasys platform took just 10 days, as Cornel puts into context:
“This kind of speed and cost efficiency is unheard of in the financial services sector and in fact sets a new record for GENRIC when it comes to launching a new product.”
Find out how Genasys can grow your business
If you’d like to learn more about leaving legacy tech behind, getting to market quickly, and growing your revenue, speak to our team for a friendly, no-obligation chat.
