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Comment by dirtae | Hacker News Reader

"Take our services + insurance view to the extreme, and insurance premiums start looking like the next ad dollars – spinning out free products and services that bring joy to insurance customers, the basis for a consumer-centric insurance company."

Huh?

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Insurance companies, largely offer the same products and "differentiate" on customer service. My view is that value-added services, and pressure on price will win the day. Highlighted a few in the article, but perhaps, press a button to get free roadside assistance, talk to a mechanic 24/7, sensors in your home to mitigate risk. The premium volumes are certainly there to support greater value being transferred to the customer.

OK. I still don't understand the reference to "ad dollars". What are "ad dollars" in this context, and how do insurance premiums look like ad dollars?

> Insurance companies, largely offer the same products and "differentiate" on customer service.

UK market, so somewhat different. A large proportion of our insurance sales go through various comparison websites who are the new "zero value add" broker. This leads to a large number of decisions being largely price based.

I have no idea whether this transition occurred in the states?

Seems like exactly the type of things I don't want my insurance provider partaking in. Insurance is risk distribution, plain and simple. It doesn't need to be cute or fun, and it definitely doesn't need to be spending money to delight users. Your premiums are subsidizing that delight.

As a tech company, many of the things we do to improve the insurance experience can (and perhaps shouldn't, per my prior comments), have zero marginal cost. Say your house burns down - the carrier is going to request receipts, and pictures from your kids' birthday party to prove you owned property you're claiming against. This is not delightful, and is one of the reasons we built out our auto-cataloguing tool.

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