Risky Business

We have been researching the gig-economy through different lenses for a few years now. Recently we had the opportunity to view gig-economy work from an insurance point of view. In our previous story we shared examples to support the market-fit validation tips we discussed earlier. Now we want to briefly outline a few nuggets from an ongoing user study with insurance consumers and some revealing outcomes on risk taking in the sector:

• Of all study participants, a strong majority of independent professional service providers do not take on relevant business insurances to protect their business activities.
• The majority of those who do not take on insurance are split evenly between two groups:
  (a) Those who had never really thought about the need for insurance protection, and
  (b) Those who were not able to find products that matched with business activities that are typically inconsistent or ad hoc owing to the nature and cycle of gig-economy business activities.
• For context, 60% of participants were from North America (US and Canada specifically), and the remaining 40% were from western European countries.

The fact that most freelancers don’t tend to take on business insurance is consistent with other industry studies. The opposing reasons for not taking on insurance additionally highlight two areas for further research including:

1. Opportunities to raise awareness about the risks and protections for specific gig-economy business activities.
2. The factors leading to the lack of product availability to serve this population or in communicating the value propositions for existing products focussed on this market.

Since this is an ongoing study, if significant changes to data emerge we will repost corrections. If this is of interest to you and you want to stay close to the study, contact us directly, we will be happy to share more insights 1-on-1.