How it Works to Develop a New Insurance Product with Boost

By The Boost Team on Sep 2, 2023

4 min read

How it Works to Develop a New Insurance Product with Boost

If you’ve visited our website, you’ve probably seen that Boost is a full-stack digital insurance platform that’s built for growth. Our API-driven infrastructure makes it easy to build and sell innovative, customized insurance solutions. But what exactly does that mean? And what exactly does it look like to build a product with Boost?

In this blog, we'll break it down step-by-step and explain the three phases of new insurance product development with Boost, all the way from the drawing board to your successful launch.

Phase 1: Research and Proposal

The first phase of working with Boost to build a new insurance product is all about laying the groundwork for the new program. It’s a very collaborative and research-heavy phase with the goal of creating a well-rounded product proposal.

Identify New Program Opportunity

The first step is to meet with our team to discuss your idea, and how it might fit into the market. Our insurance experts will help evaluate the opportunity for a new insurance product, and decide if it’s the right fit for your business and ours.

Research and Initial Product Scoping

Our team will then start researching the market, looking at areas like the regulatory environment, market size, and how the product might be structured. From there, we’ll put together an initial scope of what the product might cover (and what it won’t).

Product Sketch and Stakeholder Review

With this information in hand, Boost will create a product sketch—a conceptual representation of the program's key elements. The product sketch is then reviewed by your key stakeholders, including insurance experts, actuaries, members of your C-suite, etc.

This is your opportunity to review all of the essential details, give positive and constructive feedback, request adjustments, and ask any questions that you might have. Our experts will then take your feedback and make any necessary adjustments to ensure that the program aligns with your vision, our scope, and the target market's needs and preferences.

Once everyone is happy with the proposal and the product sketch receives final approval, product development can begin!

Phase 2: Product Development

This is where the product begins to take shape.

Product Development Timeline

The first step is organization. Our team builds a detailed product development timeline that outlines every step and milestone from conception to launch. This timeline acts as a roadmap, guiding the team through the development process.

Building the Product

Our team starts by developing the documentation that will be used to provide insurance coverage under the program. This stage includes:

Writing the product forms, including applications, endorsements, policy documents, and more
Developing the rates that determine how the premium will be calculated
Creating underwriting guidelines that determine which risks our product will and won’t cover, and what the maximum limits for various risks should be
Designing a claims workflow that will give your policyholders a seamless experience

Submit to Reinsurance and Fronting Carriers

A crucial step of the insurance product development process is to submit the program details to our reinsurance and fronting carriers. Securing capacity is a hugely important aspect of creating a program, and can be one of the most challenging areas for insurtechs trying to launch new products.

A great aspect of working with Boost is that we already have a panel of dedicated reinsurance partners in place to secure and scale capacity for new insurance programs. We’ll share the program with our partners, and address any questions or concerns they may have. After our carrier partners agree to provide reinsurance backing for the new product, the next stage can begin.

Phase 3: Technology and Product Filing

With our reinsurance and fronting carriers on board, the program enters the technology and product filing phase.

Filing timeline

The product will need to be filed with the insurance regulatory agency in each state where you want to sell your product. We’ll start this phase by building out a timeline for this process, including which states to prioritize. Our team then handles the task of preparing and filing the product with each state and handles any requests for change or clarification from individual state insurance departments.

Configuring the policy administration system

This is the phase where Boost’s dev team configures our state-of-the-art policy administration system (PAS) to incorporate all your new program's features and underwriting guidelines. When they’re finished, you’ll be able to access the product through a simple API integration with your own digital environment

Integrating into your website

At this stage, our dev team passes the baton to your dev team to integrate the new API. Luckily, our insurance API was specifically built with developers in mind to be as smooth and easy to implement as possible.

We are also there to support you through the implementation process and troubleshoot any issues and ensure a smooth experience.

Launch

Once the necessary filings are approved, and the API integration is completed successfully, the program is ready for launch! You can start selling the new product to your customers and generating additional revenue.

Working with Boost is a collaborative and result-oriented experience. From the initial stages of research and proposal to the final steps of technology integration and product filing, our team of experts is dedicated to bringing your next innovative insurance solution to the market.

If you want to learn more about partnering with Boost to build a custom insurance product, contact us.

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