Launching a policy administration system in just one week
In 2021, ethical MGA, Arma Karma, launched to address a gap in the market for renters – covering high-value items in and outside the home, as well as abroad. Their standout differentiator? Arma Karma offers monthly subscription-based policies for household contents insurance which can be cancelled at any time. The business also donates 25% of its commission revenue to one of four charities of the policyholder’s choosing – making their business model incredibly unique.
Genasys has been the proud insurance technology partner to Arma Karma since its inception, with the core Genasys policy administration platform enabling it to grow from an initial ambitious idea to a multi-award-winning MGA.
A customer-centric partnership
Arma Karma came to Genasys as a start-up on a limited budget. They needed a policy administration system that could support their revolutionary insurance proposition, and a partner that bought into their goals with a flexible approach to delivery and budget.
“We knew that when we brought a product to market, it had to incorporate the absolute highest levels of tech to ensure it was a seamless process for customers to sign up,” Ben Smyth, Arma Karma CEO and Founder, explained. “The barriers to taking out insurance needed to be almost negligible so that people would take out the cover.”
Ben continues, “The one way to beat ‘big insurance’ is to be nimble, fast and agile… to be able to approach and deal with challenges quickly in a way that larger insurers can’t. This was key to gaining an advantage. We made this happen by choosing the right partners, like Genasys, in order to support and help us.”
Ben noted that Genasys stood out for future-proof tech, admiring how the software and the team could address any problems that arose together at a rapid pace.
“We want to work with like-minded businesses, and in Genasys, we’ve found our long-term technology partner. They are totally committed to delivering for us, and by putting their money where their mouth is, they have gone above and beyond the realms of a traditional partnership in order to help our fledgling business thrive.”
The partnership has gone beyond what might normally be expected for a software-insurer relationship. As testament to the level of expert support Arma Karma has received, from Genasys, and the success of the relationship so far, Genasys’ CEO, Andre Symes, was delighted to accept a role as a non-executive director to the Arma Karma board.
Delivering a platform in just one week
Due to Arma Karma’s ambitious targets, Genasys was asked to deliver the foundational platform in less than four weeks. This would enable an initial concept launch, followed by a full market launch in less than six weeks.
Faced with this challenge, Genasys made magic happen and delivered the foundational platform in just one week, enabling rapid-testing of the brand-new product and time to adapt to learnings before the full launch.
Genasys delivered the solution with the scalable back-end systems of Build, our policy administration system that has the capability of managing Netflix-style subscription payments from customers, as well as the capacity to easily plug into other service providers through APIs as Arma Karma scaled, with a key consideration relating to the commission structures needed for their charity donations, seen in a 25/75% commission value structure.
Arma Karma also used Genasys’ API to build their own front-end on top.
Ben adds “It’s a great way to do things. It’s allowing Genasys to flourish in what they do best, which is product building behind the scenes, letting us plug-in on the frontend to support the system there. It’s something we couldn’t have done alone.”
Getting to market quickly and adapting when needed
Following the test phase, adaptations to the system included revolutionising the customer journey, as well as a whole raft of product changes that influenced the reporting of the back-end platform. Genasys delivered several dozen incremental changes in just a few days, made in parallel work streams as both teams learned more about the user experience.
All work was delivered on time and on budget, to support the full market launch.
The changes made to the platform accounted for an increase in users reaching a point of price in the customer journey, an increase in users accepting quotation prices, and an increase in weekly new policies for Arma Karma. They now have thousands of subscribers and continue to scale at an impressive rate.
Ben noted that Arma Karma’s products were built with adaptability top of mind. Laying a solid foundation with Genasys’ software allows for instant changes to be made as and when they are needed. This was seen with the recent rise in fraud across the insurance industry, necessitating the implementation of additional measures to prevent risks. Genasys’s integrations made this easy to do across Arma Karma’s tech stack, enabling them to become an insurance industry frontrunner.
Ben concludes, “We were built to be scalable and adaptable, and we had to be on a platform that allows us to make changes easily. We’ve got many new products coming soon, and there’s lots of excitement building around this. Having a system that is so adaptable has allowed us to explore lots of new areas – helping us to grow, with more growth on the way.
Download Modern Insurance Magazine‘s Guide to Modern Policy Administration for more information on simplifying insurance technology.
