On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Dylan Bourguignon, CEO and SO-SURE. He is on a mission to restore customer trust in insurance, he has set up the digital insurer with a unique model that delivers win-win insurance. In this conversation the pair discuss his journey setting up SO-SURE, why he moved into insurance, how useful sales strategies and skills have been to scale the business and more.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Having been an engineer twice over, I went into strategy consulting and then private equity for 10 years, picking up an MBA on the way. In the latter part of my time in private equity I was focussed on insurance and I got to understand the entire value chain of insurance and how there was a chasm between the consumer experience of insurance and the margins the industry was making. As an investor, I was looking for businesses that were addressing the issue, sadly there weren’t any so I decided to do it myself.
• Whenever you try to change the equation for consumers, if you just try to focus on a single element of them, whether it’s distribution, policy admin or claims, as individual segments of the value chain, you’re only optimising to a sub-optimal point. If you really want to have a step change in customer experience, you really have to take control of the entire of it and redesign it. That’s what we’ve done.
• Ours is not a pool, it’s a network model. Think about it as Mutual 3.0. The idea is that I buy a policy, I’m covered, I can then connect to my friends and family who I trust and every time I connect to them, me and my friends each get £10 added to each of our reward pots. We can all connect to as many people as we want until my reward pot is worth 80% of the value of my premium. At the end of the year, if me and my friends have not claimed, the money in my pot is paid out to me. My pot is not dependent on my friends' connections, only to the people I connect directly to.
• Embedded insurance is a bit of emperor's new clothes, it’s just dressing up something that’s been around a long time. Dixons was selling insurance with laptops in the 90s. The only difference is now the ability to make it part of the consumer experience when you purchase, as distribution partners you can also build a better understanding of their customers and you can use some of that information to provide a more relevant and bespoke solution for the customers in terms of insurance. There’s all sorts of charges that the industry needs to be mindful of, for example over-insurance, if you insure for loss/theft/damage of every single item that you buy – a couch for example – is that not covered by your home and contents insurance? The solutions that we’re creating for consumers need to be relevant and we also need to be delivering a superb claim experience that needs to be as seamless as the purchasing.

BEST MOMENTS‘For us, the key was having control of the customer experience from purchase to claim. What you quickly realise is that there’s no way of fundamentally changing the paradigm for consumers unless you have control over the entire value chain – policy admin, claims, distribution.’
‘Consumers don’t trust the promise that when things go wrong your back’s covered. It’s broken. Nobody has got the consumer’s best interests at the heart of what they are doing. We’ve addressed all those issues in our redesign of the consumer experience. It’s so critical to focus on what the customer’s experience is going to be when they claim and how it can be a good experience.’
‘Win-win means amazing if you need us (our insurance products are incredibly competitive, up to 40% cheaper than our competition, it’s very clear and written for consumers and when you claim we fulfil claims within 24-72 hours, 10 times faster than the competition) and rewards if you don’t (95% of people don’t claim on insurance, you can get up to 80% of your money back if you and your friends don’t claim). What’s not to love?’
‘Be yourself and don’t stop believing.’
ABOUT THE GUESTDylan Bourguignon: Disrupting insurance with SO-SURE. We are on a mission to restore consumer trust in insurance. We have developed a digital Insurer with a unique model that delivers win - win insurance: amazing if you need us and rewards if you don't.
Previously, 10 years in private equity investing and business developing across a broad spectrum of industries (consumer, media, industrial, financial services).
Special expertise in business growth drawing upon sales, strategy, negotiation, M&A, financing, project and leadership skills. Analytical and financial skillset grounded in MBA and Chartered Engineer status degrees. Worked in Europe with exposure to Asia and USA. Bilingual French-English with conversational Spanish and basic German.
Core Skills:

• Strategy and M&A – 12 years developing strategy and business plans for companies across sectors. Worked on over 40 acquisition targets in great detail and closed four. Analytical and financial skills grounded in MBA and engineering degrees.
• B2B sales – Led the sales for Growth 365 over the first 18mo, leading to Grant Thornton investing in the national rollout. Within the private equity industry, sourced 40 deals a year; relationships led to deals being executed.
• Leadership – Project and People Management. 14 yrs experience. Started as an undergrad managing team of 12 to redesign an airbus for BAE Systems. Subsequent strategy and private equity roles required managing staff, advisors, management teams to tight deadlines. Led team of 14 in building Growth 365 for Grant Thornton. Also held leadership roles outside of work.
• Negotiations – Successfully led or participated in negotiations: asset management firm’s restructuring, 9 acquisitions, service providers and debt providers for half a dozen deals.
• International – Worked on developing businesses organically or through acquisitions in the UK, France, Norway, USA and India. Bilingual French and English with conversational Spanish and German.
• Multi-industry – 14 consulting projects and 4 completed transactions in consumer, industrial, media and financial services sectors.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbourguignon/
About So Sure.
With SO-SURE insurance you can have your cake and eat it!
SO-SURE makes it fast and easy to claim when you need us. And when you don’t? We reward you with up to 80% of your premium back.
Online platform offering insurance solutions such as phone and content for individuals. It offers coverage against theft, loss, accidental damage, water damage, and more. It also offers insurance premium reimbursement every year. It offers online claims processing services. It also offers replacement or repair once the claim is approved.
Website: https://wearesosure.com/
ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.
Twitter: SabineVdL
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Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com
Website: www.sabinevdl.com

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