EPISODE · Oct 5, 2022 · 47 MIN
Dylan Bourguignon: SO-SURE... how to socialise insurance
from Scouting for Growth · host Sabine VdL
On this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Dylan Bourguignon, who was, at the time, the CEO of SO-SURE, which he has since sold. He is on a mission to restore customer trust in insurance. He has set up his digital insurance platform with a unique model that delivers win-win insurance. In this conversation, the pair discusses Dylan's journey setting up SO-SURE, why he moved into insurance, and how useful sales strategies and skills have been to scale the business. KEY TAKEAWAYS Having been an engineer twice over, I went into strategy consulting and then private equity for 10 years, and acquired an MBA on the way. In the latter part of my time in private equity, I focused on insurance and came to understand the entire value chain and the chasm between the consumer experience and the margins the industry was making. As an investor, I was looking for businesses that were addressing the issue; sadly, there weren’t any, so I decided to do it myself. Whenever you try to change the equation for consumers, if you just try to focus on a single element that matters to them, whether it’s distribution, policy admin, or claims, as individual segments of the value chain, you’re only optimizing a sub-optimal point. If you really want a step change in customer experience, you have to take control of the entire value chain and redesign it. That’s what we’ve done. Our platform delivers a risk pooling model and a network model. Think about it as Mutual 3.0 (the next stage of the John Lewis Partnership model). The idea is that I buy a policy, I’m covered, I can then connect to my friends and family who I trust, and every time I connect to them, I and my friends each get £10 added to each of our reward pots. We can all connect to as many people as we want until my reward pot is worth 80% of the value of my premium. At the end of the year, if I and my friends have not claimed, the money in my pot is paid out to me. My pot is not dependent on my friends' connections, only on those networks of people I connect directly with. Embedded insurance is a bit like "the emperor's new clothes." I feel that it is just like dressing up something that’s been around for a long time. "Dixons" was already selling insurance with laptops in the 90s. The only difference is now the ability to make it part of the consumer experience when you purchase a product, as distribution partners you can also build a better understanding of their customers and you can use some of that information to provide a more relevant and bespoke solution for the customers in terms of the insurance. There are all sorts of charges that the industry needs to be mindful of. Think about the issue of over-insurance. If you insure for loss/ theft/ damage for every single item that you own – a couch for example – is that not covered by your home and content insurance already? The solution that we’re creating for consumers needs to be relevant and we also need to be delivering through an impeccable moment of truth -- a superb claim experience -- that needs to be as seamless as the purchase itself. BEST MOMENTS ‘For us at SO-SURE, we needed to gain control of the customer experience from purchase to claim. What you quickly realize is that there’s no way of fundamentally changing the paradigm for consumers unless you have control over the entire value chain – policy admin, claims, distribution.’ 'Consumers don’t trust the promise that when things go wrong, their back is going to be covered. Unfortunately, this is broken. Nobody has the consumer’s best interests at the heart of what they do. We’ve addressed all those issues in our redesign of the consumer experience. It’s so critical to focus on what the customer’s experience is going to be when they claim, and how it can be a good experience.’ ‘Win-win means amazing if you need us. Our insurance products are incredibly competitive, up to 40% cheaper than our competition, it’s very clear and written for consumers, and when you claim we fulfill the claims within 24-72 hours, 10 times faster than the competition. If you do not claim, you get rewards (95% of people don’t claim on insurance) If so you can get up to 80% of your money back if you and your friends in your pool don’t claim. What’s not to love?' ‘Be yourself and don’t stop believing.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Dylan Bourguignon is on a mission to restore consumer trust in insurance. He has developed a digital Insurer with a unique model that delivers win-win insurance through a social business model that rewards customers for good behavior. With 10 years of private equity investing and business development experience across a broad spectrum of industries (i.e., consumer, media, industrial, and financial services). With special expertise in business growth, drawing on sales, strategy, negotiation, M&A, financing, and leadership, Dylan has a lens for what makes sense for consumers. Dylan gained analytical and financial skill sets through an MBA and Chartered Engineer status. Worked in Europe with exposure to Asia and USA. Bilingual French-English with conversational Spanish and basic German. Dylan built SO-SURE insurance so that one can have their cake and eat it! SO-SURE makes it fast and easy to claim when a customer needs support. And when the customer does not need SO-SURE, the team rewards them with up to 80% of the premium payback. SO-SURE offers coverage against theft, loss, accidental damage, water damage, and more. It also offers insurance premium reimbursement every year. It offers online claims processing services. It also offers replacement or repair once the claim is approved. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
What this episode covers
Insurance doesn’t have a pricing problem — it has a trust problem. And Dylan Bourguignon decided to redesign the whole system to fix it. In this episode of the Scouting for Growth Podcast, Sabine VanderLinden speaks with Dylan Bourguignon, former CEO of SO-SURE, a digital insurer built on a bold premise: insurance should be a win-win relationship, not a zero-sum game. Dylan’s mission was clear from day one — restore customer trust in an industry where promises too often fall apart at the moment of truth. Dylan didn’t come from insurance by accident. Trained as an engineer (twice over), with a decade spent in strategy consulting and private equity, and armed with an MBA, he developed a forensic understanding of the insurance value chain. As an investor, he saw the gap no one was fixing: a massive disconnect between consumer experience and industry margins. When he couldn’t find a business truly addressing it, he did what entrepreneurs do best — he built one. The insight driving SO-SURE was radical in its simplicity: you can’t fix customer experience by optimising one piece of the chain. Tweaking distribution, policy admin, or claims in isolation only improves a broken system marginally. Real change requires owning and redesigning the entire value chain — from purchase to claims to rewards. SO-SURE did exactly that. Dylan describes the model as “Mutual 3.0” — a modern, digital evolution of mutual insurance. Customers buy a policy, then connect with friends and family they trust. Every trusted connection adds value to each person’s reward pot, up to 80% of the premium. If no claims are made within that personal network, customers get money back at the end of the year. Crucially, each customer’s rewards depend only on their own network, not on the behaviour of distant strangers. The result? Policies up to 40% cheaper than competitors Claims fulfilled in 24–72 hours — up to 10× faster than traditional insurers Up to 80% premium payback for the 95% of customers who don’t claim Win when you need insurance. Win when you don’t. The conversation also tackles embedded insurance — with Dylan calling out the hype. Selling insurance at the point of purchase isn’t new; what’s new is the ability to make it contextual, data-driven, and relevant. But relevance matters. Over-insurance, poor claims experiences, and opaque pricing erode trust just as quickly — embedded or not. For Dylan, the real differentiator is delivering an impeccable claims experience that’s as seamless as the purchase itself. Beyond product design, Dylan highlights the often-underestimated role of sales, negotiation, and execution skills in scaling a tech-led insurance business. Vision matters — but discipline, belief, and persistence matter more. This episode is essential listening for: InsurTech founders rethinking trust and value creation Insurance leaders redesigning customer experience end-to-end Investors seeking sustainable, consumer-centric models Anyone tired of insurance feeling like a bad deal Dylan’s closing message is as human as it is entrepreneurial: be yourself, redesign boldly — and don’t stop believing. Because when insurance finally aligns incentives with customer outcomes, trust stops being a promise — and becomes a feature.
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Dylan Bourguignon: SO-SURE... how to socialise insurance
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