Greg Isaacs
We’re excited to announce that Blend is embarking on the next step in our journey to deliver a frictionless home buying experience for consumers across America.
Homeowners insurance isn’t something most people think about as part of the home loan process — in fact, some borrowers don’t even realize they need homeowners insurance to close their mortgage — but the ensuing last-minute scramble can delay the closing process and cause a lot of anxiety for borrowers and lenders alike.
The more we learned about the insurance industry, the more we felt uniquely positioned to tackle this problem using our access to reliable borrower and property data captured in the application.
In the end, improving the insurance purchase process felt like a natural extension of our mission to bring simplicity and transparency to consumer finance.
A paper-driven industry that’s ready to evolve
For the better part of a year, our team has been working closely with our customers and their borrowers to understand the homeowners insurance problem in-depth. We’ve learned that the insurance industry can be as opaque and paper-heavy as the mortgage industry used to be — and that it, too, is ready for change.
We concluded that the best way for us to solve this problem was to make the process digital – working toward a borrower-centric one-tap insurance experience.
Today, we’re excited to announce partnerships with several nationwide insurance providers like Stillwater Insurance and Swyfft to provide borrowers with a homeowners insurance option suited to their unique situation and needs. By making this option available to borrowers online with a seamless transition between the mortgage application and the insurance quote, we’re hoping to take a little more stress out of the home buying process.
Powering a seamless insurance experience
Through our new insurance offering, borrowers should be able to get an insurance quote and bind their homeowners insurance policy in a fraction of the time it used to take. By making this option available early in the home buying process, lenders can avoid last-minute scrambles at closing. Through an integration with Blend’s mortgage application software, our agency will be able to automatically provide lenders with evidence of insurance thus saving loan processors from making long painful calls to insurance providers (often followed by waits of several days). This will be yet another way that Blend helps lenders reduce processing time and increase efficiency.
World-class service and guidance
While many borrowers will prefer Blend’s seamless online experience for purchasing homeowners insurance, we realize that for many, particularly first-time homebuyers, understanding the nuances of a homeowners insurance policy can be another overwhelming part of getting a home.
From our experience with mortgages, we know that exceptional service is more than the fusion of intuitive design and great technology. It involves as real-time service from an experienced support team.
That’s why we’re building out an office in the Los Angeles area that will be staffed by experienced insurance professionals ready to help borrowers understand homeowners insurance and find a policy tailored to their specific needs. The team will be available to borrowers by phone, chat, or email — whichever the borrower prefers. Our goal is to make the process a lot easier and provide a way for homeowners to make informed, empowered insurance decisions.
Building a better customer journey
We see our new insurance agency as an exciting step forward to further remove friction from the home buying process and improve customer satisfaction. We believe it will be better for our lenders, their borrowers, and the insurance providers we work with and will help to make the process of buying a home a little less daunting.
To facilitate this journey, we’re building a team that fuses technology and industry expertise to deliver exactly that.
If you’re a lender, insurer, or experienced insurance agent and are interested in being a part of this exciting new adventure, please get in contact with us here.