Creating an AI-Powered Insurance App for British Gas
Overview
As the insurance market evolves, British Gas sought to expand its insurance offerings and disrupt an outdated business model. To achieve this, they needed a rapid development process from an experienced team to bring their innovative idea to life.
The Challenge
British Gas, one of the largest insurers in the UK, serves 80,000 customers with home, contents, and boiler cover. Faced with increasing competition in the insurance sector, British Gas aimed to explore new ways to lead the “insurtech” market. Partnering with the innovation firm System Two, they sought to develop an Artificial Intelligence-driven insurance brokerage platform to validate their hypothesis that consumers would be more inclined to switch services if it meant saving money with minimal effort.
The Solution
Our objective was to design an app that would manage all of a user’s insurance policies, alerting them when to renew and suggesting ways to save on future renewals. Using an agile development approach, our outsourced team quickly built initial prototypes and began gathering user feedback to refine the product.
Early manual versions of the app were deemed cumbersome and time-consuming, so we focused on simplicity. The final version of the app was almost fully automated. After signing in, users could have their emails scanned and their insurance policies organised into an intuitive dashboard. The app sent automatic renewal reminders and used a basic algorithm to recommend alternative policies based on the user’s existing data.
Working closely with the System Two UX&D team, we developed the app using React Native for the front end and PHP for the backend. The entire project was completed in just 12 weeks with a team of three developers.
Impact
The app successfully onboarded over 500 users within a month, surpassing the target needed to secure a second round of funding.
Future
As preferred digital partner of System Two we’ve built numerous MVPs, apps and webs for the company and continue to develop new projects with them. We have a permanent team of outsource developers working closely with System Two, which we augment from our bench when demand requires.
Testimonial
“We value honesty, friendship and trust above all else in business. That is why they have been our outsource technology partner for the last 6 years and we have no plans to change.”
Mark Bjornsgaard - CEO System Two