The marketplace has announced its intentions to begin selling to small- and medium-sized companies.
Amazon.com Inc. has announced that it will begin selling business insurance to small- and medium-sized companies in the United Kingdom.
This represents the first step the tech giant has taken into that market in the UK.
The business insurance coverage will become available to members of Amazon’s Business Prime program. Those members will be able to purchase policies from Superscript that will include coverage such as contents, professional indemnity, and cyber.
According to a spokesperson from Superscript quoted in a Reuters report, the policies would be underwritten by “major UK insurers”. Companies purchasing the policies will be offered a 20 percent rate discount in order to draw them to purchase their coverage through Amazon instead of directly through the UK insurers that would be doing the underwriting or their rivals.
Amazon business insurance have a chance as over half of UK consumers would purchase coverage non-traditionally.
According to Capgemini consultant data based on a recent survey of 12,000 people, over 50 percent of consumers in the United Kingdom are prepared to purchase their coverage from non-traditional firms such as insurtech or big tech companies.
“The (insurance) industry needs to bridge the divide between insurers and customers by providing a quick, smooth buying process that is customer-centric,” said Superscript CEO and co-founder Cameron Shearer.
These first steps from Amazon into this segment is not entirely novel when looking at the broader market. Back in March, American insurtech Next Insurance announced that it was offering to provide US small businesses with the opportunity to purchase their coverage through Amazon Business Prime.
“As businesses come out of the pandemic and gradually resume normalcy, we want customers to have the best-in-class tools to run their business,” said Amazon Business UK & Ireland Country Manager Molly Dobson in the statement announcing the coverage availability.
Though financial institutions have expressed concern that tech giants will step in and pull away their business, industry sources cited in the Reuters report said that it’s more likely that as the trend progresses, insurers, banks and tech firms will establish partnerships instead of building direct competition with each other.
