Surround collaborates with GO on BYO insurance

Surround Insurance, an independent insurance agency that focuses on first-time buyers, is partnering with GO, a car subscription service, on a Bring Your Own Insurance program.

The BYOI program will give GO customers access to Surround’s coverage options from a variety of carriers and advice from live agents.

Jay Grayson, CEO and co-founder at Surround Insurance, told Digital Insurance that the company matches insurance products to a customer’s needs. 

Surround Insurance co-founders: Kate Terry, COO and Jay Grayson, CEO.

Mel Rainsberger

“We are building for first-time insurance buyers, so people that are largely invisible to the industry who are coming into the market through non-traditional ways and our belief is, if we acquire them early in their insurance buying journey they will stay with us for life,” Grayson says. “So, we’re looking at new entry points where new consumers are coming into the market and one of those places is in subscription vehicles. … We’re innovating car ownership while we’re innovating insurance. The partnership is really about embedding Surround Insurance into the GO subscription car flow.”

Michael Beauchamp, CEO and founder at GO, wrote in an email response that traditional car insurance is built for ownership.

“In most instances, they know and understand how to lease or finance a car, but that’s it. As soon as you start talking about the vehicle registration remaining with the asset owner, things get confusing. Surround has solved this issue. … Insurance has always been the struggle in this evolutionary portion of the automotive space we’re in. We believe it’s partnerships with forward thinking insurers and GAs that will allow us to continue to solve existing issues and remove pain points for our customers.”

Currently, customers are directed to a landing page on Surround’s site from GO’s checkout process.

“In the future, we look to embed Surround’s offering directly into the final stage of the checkout process to allow our customers to transact and purchase their insurance without ever having to leave the GO ecosystem,” Beauchamp adds.

Grayson says that Surround wants to build insurance coverage that is customized to an individual.

“The industry has evolved over the last 100 years to be very product based, we believe that it really should be much more lifestyle based. … We have multiple carriers and multiple lines of business. The roadmap for us is to start with the consumer first and then figure out what coverages they need based on how they move through life. The vision is truly customer centric insurance where we design insurance around them.”