LAS VEGAS — Digital leasing app Rodo has launched an insurance marketplace in conjunction with Travelers Group to mitigate lease cancellations, said Patrick McKeever, vice president of sales and business development at Rodo.
“One of the things we heard from our consumers — and certainly first-time buyers — is they had no idea how expensive car insurance was,” McKeever said. “They would go through our app, place an order, and then they would go and shop for insurance, and in some cases, [the cost of] insurance would be more than their lease payment,” he explained, adding that many customers would cancel the order as a result.
To offset these cancellations, Rodo made insurance integration a priority, McKeever said. “We worked with the Traveler’s Group and they created a marketplace for us where today, in Version 1.0, customers will come through Rodo and can get a quote from multiple insurance companies all at once — the forms are prepopulated to that particular insurance company, so consumers can get a quote on their new vehicle easily,” he said.
The process of finalizing its partnership with Travelers and launching the marketplace took four months. “We reached out to two larger insurance companies that candidly said, ‘Listen, we don’t have the resources or capabilities to help you. We’d love to, but we’re probably a year off,’” McKeever said. Travelers, on the other hand, had already been working on a similar background interface. “We moved and shifted with [Travelers’] team in order to accommodate their timeline,” he added.
Within 90 days, Rodo expects to launch the second version of the insurance portal, which will allow consumers to get real-time quotes for their vehicle without filling out any lease forms, McKeever said.
Currently, Rodo gets paid by the insurance companies on its platform through lead generation, McKeever explained, but was unable to provide additional details. Looking toward its 2.0 version, that compensation may change and come in higher if consumers purchase insurance, he said, noting that the finer details are “still up in the air and will differ depending on the insurance company.”
