- Australian start-up KOBA signs partnership with By Bits, to bring Australia connected pay-per-kilometre car insurance for the first time.
- A fairer kind of car insurance for low mileage drivers.
Australian start-up, KOBA, has signed a SaaS (Software as a Service) partnership agreement with By Bits.
The deal will enable KOBA to launch the first connected pay-by-kilometre car insurance in Australia. Bringing a fairer, usage-based insurance to Australia’s 10 million low mileage drivers for the first time.
KOBA founder Andrew Wong said the license and partnership was an exclusive deal for the AU/NZ market and having access to this vigorously tested tech would be a huge accelerator for the business.
“By Bits puts us in the fast lane,” Wong said. “Using this solution is like launching with a three-year pilot under our belt, enabling us to focus on our customers from day one. The partnership means we’ll be able to scale at speed and drive change in the Australian market much faster.
“By Bits gives us the first-mover advantage, without the pain of product development.”
By Bits is a SaaS technology provider spawned from By Miles, the first start-up to bring pay-by-mile insurance to the UK back in 2018. The By Bits SaaS includes a rating engine to calculate insurance premiums using modifiable underwriting and rating rules and splits the premium into a fixed amount and a per kilometre amount. It also includes an integrated policy management system which manages every aspect of the lifecycle of a car insurance policy from quotation to policy and renewal.
By Bits Founder Callum Rimmer said: “Our tried and tested platform future-proofs insurers in an unpredictable market where mobility, customer expectations and democratised data are dictating innovation. This pandemic has changed driving habits for millions and the need for the global car insurance industry to catch-up to customer expectations, has never been more pressing.
“We are excited to see how the platform performs in the Australian context and will be working closely with Andrew and his team to ensure a smooth roll-out of the technology”
Andrew said with the tech in place, KOBA was now working towards a launch date with early adopters who were registering their interest via kobainsurance.com.
“Once we hit our early growth and risk milestones, we will open a funding round to enable rapid scaling throughout Australia,” Andrew said.
KOBA is currently part of the Insurtech Gateway Australia incubation program which opened the door for founder Andrew Wong and his team to sign a deal with By Bits.
KOBA successfully closed its first round of pre-seed funding, led by Insurtech Gateway Australia.
“Telematic or ‘black box’ motor insurance got off to a rough start both here and in the UK, with many insurer-centric solutions focused on policing driver behaviour,” Insurtech Gateway Australia CEO Simon O’Dell said.
“This ‘Big Brother’ approach, unsurprisingly in hindsight, failed to win support from consumers.KOBA is an exciting opportunity to bring a customer-centric usage-based insurance solution to market in Australia.”
To pre-register for KOBA visit https://www.kobainsurance.com/
For more information, check out this interview with Founder Andrew Wong on April 14 with AusBiz Start Up Daily segment about KOBA and the future of the company. To check it out, sign up for free to the AuzBiz website and click the link below.
NOTES
1 By Bits SaaS includes an rating engine to calculate insurance premiums using modifiable underwriting and rating rules and splits the premium into a fixed amount and a per-kilometre amount; and an integrated policy management system manages every aspect of the lifecycle of a car insurance policy from quotation to policy and renewal.
By Bits offers best-in-class documentation and APIs, and the ability to integrate data and generate insight to support compelling, real-time mobile applications for customers.
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