LFP234 – Managing Your Insurance Portfolio w/Goncalo de Vasconcelos CEO RNWL

London Fintech Podcast

Over a decade into the Fintech revolution its a rare episode that covers something entirely fresh and furthermore a show that I end up thinking I should check out downloading the app – and not just me – everyone who uses insurance (that’ll be everyone) may well do too. Rnwl promise to take the hassle out of all those email renewals at random times of the year as well as providing a single hub to track your insurances as well as a host of other benefits which we dive into. It is one of those ideas so seemingly simple that when its been done one wonders why it hadn’t been before. Maybe it is harder to execute well than it sounds.

Goncalo was last back on the LFP way back in LFP025 in 2015 when he was CEO of Syndicate Room which he founded. Syndicate Room is still going strong but as Goncalo explains he loves most the early part of the entrepreneurial journey the one with infinite creative potential and at the same time no funds, no resources and few people believing it is possible.

Amazingly price comparison sites do not track – or have the data to track your insurance policies and just email you with last years search rerun. Equally insurers are interested in selling you a product and not in your entire insurance portfolio which unless you insure everything with the same provider they don’t capture either on their platforms.

So check this episode out, not just to learn more but also potentially take a burden off your shoulders and potentially have a bunch of added-value along with that.

Topics discussed include:

• microclimates in Portugal – which area is the most pleasant and temperate to live in?
• the attraction of serial entrepreneurialism
• the different flavours of the various stages of the entrepreneurial journey
• what attracts Goncalo to founding
• the importance of passion for each stage as well as ability
• the genesis of the idea for RNWL – an incoming insurance email on holiday
• Goncalo’s amazement that there was white space on the Fintech map
• funding even before the business started – “backing the entrepreneur”
• insuretech challenges that historically have been addressed/attempted to be addressed
• RNWL’s original vision
• the fragmentation of one’s insurance arrangments
• “we make managing your insurance really simple and buying insurance really easy”
• provision of extra value-added services
• B2C and B2B2C: >20,000 app users in a few months despite being B2B focused
• white-labelling to banking platforms as the monetisation and app as research and development hence free to consumers
• the ability to forward all of your insurance emails to the app which sorts it all out
• using the app to tell you your entitlements when eg flights are delayed/travel hiccoughs
• “when you need insurance cover its typically a very stressful situation” and the benefit in those circs of having everything at your fingertips
• automated processing of insurance policy details including the ability to query as well as summarise
• Goncalo’s attitude to the inevitable copying of great ideas and the right entrepreneurial attitude to such challenges
• opportunities for tuning LLMs as an opportunity – RNWL’s tech approach
• is over-coverage by insurance a big issue?
• what are key aspects found from having real platform users
• key features analysis re coverage and managing the detail in policies
• a shoutout for any superstars to join RNWL
• working as a fully-remote company

And much much more

Share and enjoy!