The Co-operators and Slice Labs announce partnership to provide on-demand insurance

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By The IJ Staff | July 18, 2018, 11:30 a.m.

CO-OPERATORS | DUUO

The Co-operators and Slice Labs Inc., an insurtech company, announced July 18 that they have signed an exclusive agreement to leverage the Slice Insurance Cloud Services (ICS) platform to launch The Co-operators new digital insurance brand in Canada.

With Slice ICS, The Co-operators says it “will create new insurance products to meet growing customer needs for easy, on-demand insurance solutions that satisfy emerging digital economies.”

Real-time and automated underwriting

The Slice ICS platform “is fully embeddable via API and includes pricing, rating, licensing, real-time and automated underwriting, servicing, and capacity,” says The Co-operators. This platform will enable the insurer to “quickly integrate, deploy and test insurance products that offer deeper customer engagement through advanced cloud technology.” It will also allow the insurer to build on-demand insurance products and services without having to invest in costly IT infrastructure upgrades in order to become a digital insurer.

New product coming later this summer

Later this summer, under the brand name duuo by Co-operators^TM, the insurer plans to launch a product that will provide pay-per-use homeshare insurance underwritten by Co-operators General Insurance Company. This insurance product would be aimed at hosts using home sharing platforms like Airbnb, HomeAway and VRBO. “The duuo by Co-operators brand reflects The Co-operators commitment to working together with clients to provide peace of mind in a way that is easy, fast, fair and affordable – a commitment made possible through the Slice platform,” says the insurer.

Meeting underserved insurance needs

"We were founded in 1945 by a small group of farmers and social pioneers who found that their needs were not met by traditional insurance offerings, so they found a new way of protecting their financial security in a time of need," said Rob Wesseling, President and CEO of The Co-operators Group Limited. "Our new business partnership with Slice is the 21^st century version of this mindset, it will allow us to meet the underserved insurance needs of Canadians participating in a highly innovative digital economy. Our shared vision of ensuring that everyone can be protected with the most intelligent and customized insurance possible makes this partnership very exciting."