General insurance provider Paymentshield has expanded its foothold in the lettings market after forming partnerships with two growing tenant referencing firms, Blinc UK and LetHQ.
It means the two companies can now offer tenants’ contents insurance directly through their own rental platforms for the first time.Â
This embedded insurance offering has been made possible through integrating with Paymentshield’s leading API technology. It automatically populates the insurance form based on details already provided by the customer as part of the referencing process, generating a quote almost instantly.
The integration is now live, giving renters access to Paymentshield’s tenants’ contents insurance, which has recently been awarded a 5-star rating from independent financial ratings company Defaqto. Specifically designed for renters, the insurance has flexible cover limits and includes tenants’ liability cover as standard. Renters will also have access to Paymentshield’s full panel of insurers, unique to the lettings market, offering them greater choice of price, cover and provider.
A YouGov survey commissioned by Paymentshield last year revealed the scale of the rental insurance blackhole, with only one in three renters having contents insurance in place. This is reflected in early data gathered since the new lettings integrations went live – 90% of Blinc UK customers who have opted to buy contents insurance have never held a policy before.
James Watson, sales director at Paymentshield, said: “Our partnerships with LetHQ and Blinc are making it easier for tenants to access contents insurance at a timely point in their rental journey.
“At the referencing stage, tenants are almost ready to move in and will be starting to think about things like broadband and energy, and it makes sense for insurance to be an integral part of that pre-move checklist too. Not only is this helping to plug the alarming protection gap in the rental market, it also enables firms like Blinc and LetHQ to improve their overall service offering. As our tenants’ contents insurance has been awarded a 5-star rating from Defaqto, they can be confident they are offering a quality insurance product to a market that has, historically, been underserved.Â
“We understand that today’s customers simply don’t have time to fill out pages of forms. Our API technology circumvents that, allowing tenants to quote and buy at the click of a button.”
Darren Bignall, director at Blinc UK, said: “Since we integrated Paymentshield’s products we have seen a dramatic improvement in our conversions. With our new lettings workflow software we are very much focused on a full online purchase process, and Paymentshield’s API has enabled us to achieve this with its tenant liability and tenants’ contents insurance products. The system has worked really well and is giving us very high returns for a fully automated journey.”
Simon Skinner, operations manager at LetHQ, concluded: “Integration of tenant insurance cover options between the LetHQ platform and Paymentshield has helped offer UK tenants a market-leading, comprehensive range of cover to help protect their personal possessions in the event of a loss.
“With the added benefit of tenant liability included as standard, this goes much further and also helps protect agents and landlords. Development was quick and easy and Paymentshield’s in-house API team worked closely with our own team to get us up and running in the shortest and most cost-effective time.”
Paymentshield’s panel of tenants’ contents insurance providers includes industry heavyweights LV=, AXA, UK General and RSA.
