Beagle Street goes from start up to Best Online Life Insurance Provider in five years
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Named Best Online Life Insurance Provider 2017 at Your Money Awards
TrustPilot score 9.3/10
Customers covered in under 10 minutes online
July 2017 marks five years since the launch of Beagle Street, the UK's first online-focused life insurance brand. The business was set up by leading digital distributor BGL Group, which also owns one of the UK's largest and most popular price comparison websites, comparethemarket.com, and insurance brands Budget Insurance and Dial Direct, as well as leading insurance partnerships business Junction, which provides car and home insurance via household name brands.
With its slick online process and "no middle men" approach, Beagle Street disrupted the traditional life insurance market by prioritising simplicity and ease of purchase. Its customers don't undergo a medical but instead answer a brief series of questions designed to establish their health, keeping costs down and allowing many to secure cover in less than 10 minutes. Further features which separate Beagle Street from other life insurance providers include the fact that it actively searches official records to ensure that claims are paid out, whether or not it receives notification from a loved one that a policyholder has died. All customers are offered a free will writing service, along with the opportunity to place their policy in trust, to choose who will distribute the payout should they die.
The brand places great importance on customer service, calling each policyholder following their purchase to make sure that they understand what they have bought, and ensuring that all life insurance consultants receive training from the Samaritans so that they can handle calls with sensitivity.
Beagle Street's fresh approach, combined with a marketing campaign which has seen it take an estimated 39% share of life insurance advertising on TV over the past year, has driven over 80,000 policy sales to date, and an estimated 5%+ (and growing) share of the term life market.
Beagle Street Managing Director Matthew Gledhill said:
"Before Beagle Street it was a tortuous process trying to buy life insurance and often involved doctors, financial advisers and a lot of jargon – and many people ended up buying more than they set out to.
"We wanted to offer something that insured people's lives simply and quickly and by the modern medium of the internet. The root of our success is that we've made the process really easy, accessible and affordable, and we've shown a complete commitment to delivering the best possible customer service – evidenced by our 9.3 TrustPilot rating.
"We've made the life insurance industry sit up and take notice of us and we're taking a significant share of the market."
Neil Lovett, Commercial Director of Beagle Street's underwriter Scottish Friendly, said:
"We've been delighted to work with Beagle Street from the very beginning, their engaging combination of energy, innovation and ambition was infectious and we recognised in them an organisation set on disrupting and changing the life insurance market. Their tireless devotion to getting the product, the journey and the marketing right has been rewarded by their admirable growth but also their intellectual presence in the market."
Stuart Hill, Managing Director of Beagle Street's reinsurer Hannover Re UK Life Branch, said:
"Hannover Re began its journey with BGL Group to bring Beagle Street to market back in 2010 and from the outset we have shared their sense of purpose to make life insurance more accessible, to more people. Our partnership enabled us to use our complementary skillsets to provide consumers with access to life and critical illness protection at a compelling price and to make it more readily available via a quick and simple online process.
"The Beagle Street team brought with them expertise in creating engaging digital insurance brands built on real consumer behavioural insights and ongoing data analytics. This, combined with Hannover Re's ability to apply a deep understanding of assessing and pricing risk to design effective yet efficient customer journeys, enabled us to co-develop a proposition which has moved the protection market since launch.
"Beagle Street have led the resurgence of direct to consumer insurance models seen since their launch and have forced a refocus on building customer relationships based on service and value delivery.
"We congratulate Beagle Street on their fifth anniversary and offer our best wishes for their continued success".
Cost illustration
£200k decreasing term life insurance cover for 22 years for a 32-year-old non-smoker costs under £7 a month. Prices May 2017.
TV market share estimation based on figures from July 2016 to July 2017 from the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB).
Estimated life insurance market share of 5%+ based on 2016 term only figures from Swiss Re Term and Health Watch 2017.
Recent awards and accolades for Beagle Street
July 2017, awarded Best Online Life Insurance Provider, Your Money.
June 2017, shortlisted for Best Term Assurance Provider, Investment Life and Pensions Moneyfacts Awards (winner to be announced in September 2017)
March 2017, listed as a Which? best direct deal
January 2017, Highly Commended, Life Insurance Provider of the Year (Direct), Moneyfacts Consumer Awards
Originally released: 27th July 2017