First GoCompare and now Confused.com sold. 

Future, Britain’s biggest magazines publisher, swooped on price comparison site GoCompare late November, in a £594m takeover deal.

The board of GoCo Group unanimously recommended that shareholders vote in favour of the deal. Future had already received undertakings representing 33.5% of shareholders, including from Wood, committing to the deal.

“In just four years since its demerger from Esure Group, GoCo Group has created significant shareholder value,” Wood said. “I believe the offer, comprised of a significant equity component, provides a compelling opportunity for shareholders to benefit in substantial future value creation.”

 Admiral consolidated its comparison businesses into a separate division, Penguin Portals, in 2019. The gross value of the unit’s assets at the end of June was £78.1m, with the division contributing £13.6m of profits to the wider group in the first six months of the year. “Penguin Portals offers an exciting opportunity for us to expand our consumer brand portfolio and geographic reach,” said Tariq Syed, chief executive of RVU. “With its focus on insurance, Confused.com perfectly complements Uswitch’s existing expertise in the home services category, and with equally established offerings in other countries we have an opportunity to help even more consumers find the right deals for their needs.”

Insurers facing the new challenge in 2021 of acquiring new customers through better products and service rather than price optimisation i.e. charging new customers lower premiums than existing ones on price comparison websites. Price optimisation must be replaced by cost optimisation to fund the higher costs of customer acquisition.

Claims management is the moment when a customer needs an insurer most and where insurers and brokers can deliver better virtual and online service. Look out for the digital claims platforms that do to traditional insurance core platforms exactly what Salesforce did to ERP and Salesforce Automation vendors with the classic No Software slogan. Absolutely slayed them with lower cost and less effort to innovate and no need for more on-prem hardware.

BUT, in parallel,  the ability to scale up at speed. Start small, test and iterate, constantly improve with a compelling platform and commercial model.

The equivalent is happening today from Australia to the USA with 'Beyond Code' digital claims platforms hosted on Amazon AWS and MS Azure. Freeing insurers and brokers from the shackles of  expensive, complex and slow to change coresystems without the unsustainable costs that they have born in the past.

Rejuvenating these core systems whether legacy or new without having to replace them.

Providing the means to innovate fast and deliver the service and products that customers demand- NOW. No more kicking the can down the road.

See Flipping the odds of transformation success in your favour