Blanket wraps up domestic insurance for IFAs

Blanket is an Auckland-based software provider that allows financial advisers to access domestic insurance products for their clients. Since launching in late 2019, Blanket has grown to support over 200 financial advisors nationwide, and has now launched six exclusive policy wordings for home, contents and vehicle insurance, provided by Ando.

Blanket’s Managing Partner, Nicholas Rolfe, says that Blanket was created to give financial advisers cloud-based access to domestic insurance products and the ability to easily plug those products into their businesses with compliance support, allowing them to bring more value to their client relationships.
 

“Blanket has been built to give financial advisers the ability to integrate domestic insurance into their business, supporting them with another tool to solidify their place in the value chain and bring more value to their clients.”

Blanket’s new policy wordings are packaged into two suites of products - Blanket Standard and Blanket Comprehensive. Each package has custom-built Home, Contents and Vehicle insurance policy wording that financial advisers can access for their clients.

With Blanket, financial advisers have the ability to choose between two models: write or refer.

To write domestic insurance on the Blanket platform means a financial adviser must complete the National Certificate in Financial Services Level 5 General Insurance strand and product accreditation through Blanket. They can then access Blanket’s cloud-based portal, compliance support and exclusive product wordings for their clients.

After significant demand, Blanket now also provides a referral model where their team of in-house financial advisers will support IFAs clients from start to finish with domestic insurance.

“Since launching our dedicated referral model earlier this year we have seen significant uptake with over 30% of volumes going through this channel. This means IFAs can focus on their core business but still benefit from having a dedicated domestic insurance offering for their clients,” Rolfe says.

“Both COVID and regulatory changes have forced IFAs to think about their business model in terms of the diversity in their offering, revenues and customer outcomes; Blanket’s service is here to support businesses with this.”

With over 10 years of experience in financial services, Rolfe started in the industry as a Life and Risk adviser. After experiencing the difficulty of accessing F&G products, he decided to build a platform to support other IFAs to access these products.

“I am passionate about innovation and pushing boundaries, it’s what drives me – finding technology-led solutions to problems that defy industry norms. All businesses should be driven to constantly evolve and I enjoy continuing to challenge capabilities within the industry and my own businesses.”