To realize highest user experience. Insurance management SaaS “hokan”
Hello! This is Saori Nicole, Community Manager of Plug and Play Japan.
Every month at Plug and Play, we interview our selected startups to introduce their activities. This month we introduce hokan inc., an exciting startup that provides customer management and insurance contract management services for financial institutions, insurance agencies and end users!
How do you manage your own insurance contract?
While various insurance products such as life insurance and automobile insurance exist, it is quite difficult to frequently check the contract information and payment situation. There are some people who might not remember how much they are paying every month.
Hokan is a startup that develops SaaS (software provided on the cloud) that can store various insurance policies which can be easily checked at any time via a single interface.
The policy data is graphed and stored in an intuitive format so that financial institutions and insurance agencies are able to provide great service to their customers. Hokan also offers services that support sales activities by suggesting customer visits and follow-ups at a good timing by using AI.
Additionally, they plan to release an insurance management application within the year, that will allow customers to compare insurance agents and contact them directly and easily.
In the following interview, CEO Mr. Kosaka talked about the development history of hokan, key of business expansion and their future prospects.
Nicole: Why did you decide to develop hokan?
Kosaka: I was working at an insurance agency in my previous job, but I felt that there were not so many management and CRM tools that could raise UX of end users. Also, I always thought that SaaS with a good UI (user interface) is necessary. The strength of hokan is that it is thoroughly user-friendly. Anyone who uses the platform can easily organize and access the information. First of all, we provide an interface that organizes customer information collectively and proposes sales activities to salespersons, and offer it for a monthly price of ¥1,980.
Nicole: I suppose it is reasonable as a SaaS to be introduced at a company. Are you currently looking at the Japanese market as a target?
Kosaka: Currently, we are targeting Asian markets such as Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. This is the market where SaaS is growing and there is certain respect to Japan (or to Japanese companies). I think that our service can be easily accepted and established.
Nicole: What is the key factor for the expansion of hokan’s service?
Kosaka: First of all, it is important to cooperate with the insurance companies that will be target clients to introduce our service, and to make sure that our service will be chosen by customers for insurance agencies in terms of high UX. What you should compare with hokan is not insurance products, but is UI such as Amazon or Google. Hokan is a non-face-to-face service, but through the communication between the salesperson who use hokan and customers, we provide hokan itself the warmth of face to face UX. In the future, for salespersons working in the insurance industry, I would like to make hokan a service that is indispensable to obtain high UX from customers.
Nicole: Is there any content you would like to add in the future?
Kosaka: For the end users, we will gradually add services that will help salespersons increase knowledge and know-how. Hokan comes from the word “hokan” which means “storage” or “complement” in Japanese. In addition to storing and propelling data, we will complement the service that salespersons feel is missing as a training tool. Through that, we will realize end user’s high UX.
Nicole: Interesting! It complements what is necessary to make the service more considerable towards end users. Why did you apply for Batch 1 at Plug and Play Japan?
Kosaka: I think that Insurtech is finally becoming popular in Japan. But in Silicon Valley there are already many Insurtech startups, right? I can see that Plug and Play is an accelerator with a proven track record specialized in Insurtech. It is a great opportunity for us to use this brand power and this is something no other accelerators in Japan has in terms of Insurtech. Also, after all, information of overseas Insurtech trend gathers at Plug and Play, right? You can catch up with the information that you could not reach without the network of Plug and Play. I think that it is a hub of information.
Nicole: What do you want to achieve throughout the 3 month program?
Kosaka: I wish that we will be able to collaborate with major corporate partners. We are planning to meet with some major companies already. Also, I want to do more PR about our company. I would like to increase media exposure through Plug and Play as well!
If you would like to know more about hokan’s service, head over to hokan’s web site and be sure to check out their 30-day free trial!
At Plug and Play Japan, we are still accepting entries for Batch 2 starting in December.
Please feel free to contact us for questions / inquiries of application!
APPLY HERE
