The future of insurance – more Ctrl for everyone

Ctrl looks out for the interests of consumers as well as advisors, making short-term insurance easy for all.
Ctrl Financial Intermediaries (CFI) was launched in 2018 as South Africa’s first fully digital insurance advisor, allowing users to go through the entire insurance process in a single app. From quotes, to cover and everything in between.
This app was developed by CFI’s sister company, Ctrl Technologies, a software company that specialises in creating smart solutions for the insurance industry.
Both companies form part of Ctrl Investment Holdings which was founded in 2017 by Pieter Venter, Francois Venter and Pieter Erasmus (pictured above).
How it works
As a digital insurance advisor, Ctrl provides competitive quotes from different insurers and enables consumers to compare them side by side.
An actuarial algorithm (written by Ctrl co-founder Francois Venter for the short-term insurance industry specifically) makes a recommendation based on the insurance products and the user’s unique financial needs. So each quote gets a rating.
Once the person decides on a quote, it can be accepted directly on the platform without follow up phone calls or paperwork. CFI then becomes their digital insurance advisor, available to help with general advice, claims, as well as roadside and home emergencies.
The new way of doing things
This is radically different from the way things were done before, and it soon became evident that apart from the obvious benefits to the consumer, brokers would also benefit by taking advantage of the efficiencies that the system creates.
So, even before the catastrophic impact of Covid19 and the subsequent lockdown, several independent insurance brokers started talking to Ctrl Technologies about the possibility of creating a white-labelled app for them to roll out to new as well as existing clients.
“The idea was always to not only improve the user experience from the client’s perspective but also to enable the insurance advisors to become more efficient and to give them the tools needed to remain relevant in the digital age,” according to Pieter Erasmus, co-founder of Ctrl.
Enabling the advisor
This is done by transforming their traditional brokerage into a digital insurance advisor in a very short time.
By streamlining the underwriting process and policy amendments to be a self-service function, and automating compliance functions like annual renewals and the record of advice, it frees up the advisor to engage meaningfully with the client as well as the insurer, making sure everyone is getting the best products, feedback and services possible.
“Because Ctrl Financial Intermediaries was technically our first client as Ctrl Technologies we gained valuable information about user behaviour and also industry requirements to improve the app and be 100% compliant,” Ctrl co-founder and CEO Pieter Venter explains. “We know what it takes to keep the insurers and our clients satisfied and we feel confident that this is the way of the future.”