Tapoly- bespoke insurance platform for sharing economy participants

Lead Participant: TAPOLY LTD

Abstract

"The insurance sector in the UK is a significant economic force, employing \>300,000 people and generating £12Bn in tax receipts. The UK is the fourth largest insurance market in the world, with over £300Bn in premium income.

Self-employed and freelance workers represent 15% (4.8M) of the workforce in the UK and they are very poorly served by the insurance market as a whole. Insurance products are generally very rigid, can be difficult to change and cannot easily cope with flexible working requirements.

Pay-as-you-go insurance options are emerging but thus far they only cover non-business risks (household, motor, travel). The majority of our target market works in:

* IT and technology, e.g. freelance software engineers, testers and project managers
* Marketing & Media, e.g. photographers, copywriters, editors and web designers
* Management consultancy, e.g. financial services, marketing and sales
* Miscellaneous e.g. personal assistant, personal development coaching and keynote speaking

Tapoly differentiate by targeting an underserved and expanding sector of the market, which is ripe for disruption. The outputs of this project will include designs and test implementations for the Oracle chatbot and advanced risk calculation engine. We will incorporate these to enhance our current MVP. They will make us more competitive by allowing us to offer highly bespoke, mass-customised insurance rapidly and cost-effectively. In turn, this will allow us to target an underserved and growing market area with a disruptive offering that better suits freelancers' needs.

Within the many types of insurance available, Tapoly will offer several products to freelancers, of which we expect Professional Indemnity (PI) to generate greatest revenues."

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

TAPOLY LTD £290,400 £ 203,280
 

Participant

UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS £99,207 £ 99,207
INNOVATE UK
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
BEAZLEY MANAGEMENT LIMITED £10,345

Publications

10 25 50