(Participants in Uber’s Momentum program will have access to Stride’s recommendation engine. Source: Uber.)
Stride Health, a San Francisco-based agency has made its health coverage recommendation directly accessible to Uber (San Francisco) nationwide through the Uber Partner App for driver-partners. Stride will be accessible by all drivers nationwide who participate in Uber’s Momentum partner rewards program, which also includes discounts on fuel, reduced vehicle maintenance costs; and discounts at wireless carriers.
Noah Lang, CEO, Stride Health.
In 2014, Uber and Stride began piloting Stride’s healthcare recommendations and coverage enrollment engine in seven states: California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida and New Jersey. In the pilot, Stride’s recommendation engine was available only through driver’s online accounts, rather than directly through the Uber Partner app.
(Related: Google’s Distribution Disruption: Insurers Must Be Where the Customers Are)
“Last year we embraced the opportunity to help a portion of Uber’s partners maximize their financial savings on health coverage,” comments Noah Lang, CEO, Stride Health. “With hundreds of thousands of people growing small businesses on the platform, I’m thrilled that we’ve taken it up a notch this year with national expansion.”
During the pilot, over 45,000 Uber partners used Stride for guidance on a variety of healthcare needs, including finding a doctor, planning a visit, enrolling in coverage, and using the company’s recommendation engine to compare health plan options, Stride reports. The pilot also showed that two-thirds of Uber driver partners accessed Stride from their mobile device and that nearly half of drivers who enrolled in health coverage through Stride used their phones to do so.
Relationships and Simplicity in Insurance Distribution
Matthew Josefowicz, President & CEO, Novarica.
“Stride’s results show the importance of relationships and simplicity in next-generation insurance sales,” comments Matthew Josefowicz, CEO of research and advisor firm Novarica (Boston). “While this particular example is in voluntary benefits, there’s no reason that simple liability or property coverage couldn’t be sold the same way—and it probably will be soon.”
The Stride/Uber collaboration is consistent with trends noted in Novarica’s new report, “Direct Online Small Commercial Insurance: Updates and New Observations,” (Nov. 2015), of which Josefowicz is co-author with Laura Kling, senior associate, Novarica. “The marketplace now offers several options for online agency software and services, and an increasing number of retailers and service organizations—everything from financial advisors to Wal-Mart—are showing interest in offering insurance products to their customers under their own brands,” the authors report. “This strategy makes use of the trusted relationship these brands have with their customers, and can be a way to monetize (or further monetize) those relationships, as well as a way to offer mutually beneficial protection to the customers.”