Simplisure, a startup launched by life insurance industry veterans, has unveiled its flagship digital platform.
Two of the firm's three principals have long worked with end customers and financial advisors to help them find the best match based on the personal history and needs of those seeking insurance.
During those years, two brothers Bracknell “Brack” and Caleb Baker said they realized a digital solution was overdue, one that would allow financial planners to streamline the life insurance process for their clients.
“We kept thinking to ourselves that there must be ways to make this a cleaner, more efficient process,” said co-founder Brack Baker.
For many years, licensed insurance brokers and advisors have often focused on high-commission whole life insurance products.
“The area of insurance that is too often overlooked is simple life insurance,” said Sean Kenmore, founder and principal of Affinity Capital Advisors, a nine-person fee-only fiduciary RIA based in Berkeley, California. “Let's say you have a young family and you're in technology; maybe a $1 million term life insurance policy is right for you, but it's a lot of work and process for not a lot of payoff.”
Many insurance brokers and advisors have a reputation for selling more complex and expensive whole life insurance policies, he said.
“We started with term life insurance because we saw that there was a great need from the advisors we worked with for education, unbiased price comparison and a simple process that kept both the advisor and their client informed during underwriting,” said co-founder Caleb. Baker.
“Term has a lower allowance, and that's just the way it is,” Brack Baker said.
Their Simplisure platform is fully digital and cloud-based and allows advisors and consumers to easily search and compare prices and ultimately complete a term life insurance application securely online.
It is intended for advisors who are not licensed to sell insurance but still want to direct clients to a carrier agnostic quote comparison tool for term life insurance and want to be kept informed during and after the process.
The platform offers two interfaces, one for advisers and a direct-to-consumer option.
Both interfaces allow users to search and compare prices for term life insurance from 11 leading companies (the company plans to add more) and quickly complete an application.
Simplicity acts as the insurance broker for all policies sold to the customer.
Kenmore said that while he had held an insurance license for several years, he let it lapse because he preferred working with Bakers. He had been one of the earliest adopters of Simplisure's quote engine, which was the first part of the platform released in 2022.
“The (Simplisure) platform is carrier, brand agnostic and if its quotes and prices come back looking good, it's easy and fully automated and efficient when it comes to the application process,” Kenmore said.
“This is a huge improvement over the past, emails and phone calls, did you get that quote for me? which can often last days to weeks.
“Now I can get a quote to my customer in less than five minutes,” said Kenmore, who pays nothing to use the platform. Its use is free for non-licensed advisors; Simplisure makes its income by acting as the insurance broker that completes the sales transaction.
Simplisure grew out of GB Financial Group, a family life insurance firm co-founded in 1994 by Brack Baker and his mother, Gwen Baker.
According to the founders, the company has plans to expand into comparing and selling long-term care and disability insurance in the future. There are also plans for Simplisure to roll out a subscription model for licensed advisors who want to use the company's comparison engine in the next three to six months.
“This is our goal and we already have several licensed advisors and P&C agents who engage with us on a commission basis,” said Brack Baker.
We've seen other examples of insurtech startups dovetailing with the advisory business in recent years. Modern Life, which aligns with much of what Simplisure does but for licensed advisors, launched its platform two years ago.
Both Ethos Life Insurance and Ladder Life Services also sell life insurance from multiple carriers, work with advisors (in addition to their direct-to-consumer products) and offer digital platforms. Ladder also has integrations with several advisory technology providers, including Orion's Redtail and Envestnet | MoneyGuidePro.