Last year we began a journey to modernize our brand in response to the changes happening in our world, and now under our new name Mitch, we’ve just announced something called lovable insurance. These two words don’t inherently seem to belong together, but here’s the thing – why can’t they?
Coming out of a time of global social isolation, you might assume that some of the key attributes of lovable insurance – like a culture of kindness, caring for others and solving challenges by doing the right thing – were built in response to the pandemic. In reality, we chose a path of authenticity, looking to our history and cultural roots. We stuck to the defining characteristics of our company, which have existed all along. They sort of defy the public perceptions of insurance, in a good way.
For the past decade, Mitchell & Whale has been a fun and creative place to work, led by an awesome team who cares about each other, our work and especially our customers. It’s super evident when you look at our 4.8-star Google rating and our Net Promoter Scores (NPS) that are consistently above 80.
On the other end, insurance hasn’t been historically great at getting the attention of consumers and creating engagement in a positive way. Collectively speaking, as an industry, we’re apologists who have doubled down on the idea that insurance is a commoditized product that makes people’s eyes glaze over. Even worse, we’ve unilaterally reinforced stereotypes by selling our products through fear, confusion and inherent negativity. Insurance is shrouded in mystery. Consumers don’t understand the language of insurance, the products or the actuarial science of how rates are calculated and why they increase – even if they’ve never had a claim in their lives.
We want to take the anxiety out of buying insurance and make it an unexpectedly positive experience. We love insurance. It safeguards all the things we care about and love. It’s almost always purchased when people are celebrating a milestone in their lives – like buying their first car, getting married, purchasing a home, starting a family or even a new business. As an insurance marketplace, we’re there for those special moments and we’re going to recognize them by bringing some surprise and delight into our customers’ lives.
We know the lovable insurance approach will take time to achieve in a meaningful way, but as a start, it’s already authentically ingrained in our company’s DNA. We have the will, influence and culture to lead a movement for positive change.
So what does lovable insurance really look like? It means we will treat our customers with a high degree of empathy, care and transparency. More than that, we aim to deliver a genuine wow experience in every interaction people have with us.
Our research has shown that the biggest thing customers care about is speed of service and respect for their time. We’re looking to lead the industry in call response times. We’re also looking to deliver little to no lag in all our communication channels and touchpoints, whether it’s our website or social channels. It’s a key component of lovability.
We believe in fair insurance. As a distributor for over 70 of Canada’s best insurers, we’re able to deliver equal access to insurance for all customers no matter their history or current situation. We will also democratize insurance by giving our customers a say in how we design and deliver our services.
We’re in the middle of reimagining our online quoters and self-serve options to not only give people the ability to compare coverages and quotes in a simple way, but also help them understand how their rates compare to their peers, and how they’re being scored as an insurance consumer – similar to that of a credit score. If a customer has a poor score, we’ll help them improve it. We want our brand of lovable insurance to be an influencer. Our reason for existence is to be thought leaders in our industry, driving change for consumers through subject matter authority, data insights, customer feedback and input. We’ll also be a fearless and unwavering voice for public good through kindness and advocacy.
Ultimately, we’re going to spread joy every chance we get. What’s not to love about that?