The news: The UK-based insurtech launched building and contents insurance for homeowners—expanding its product suite beyond renters insurance, which it introduced in 2019 and which costs as little as £5 ($6.40), per a company blog post.

Urban Jungle raised £8 million ($10.26 million) in June, and revealed that it has a customer base of 40,000 (up from 20,000 in June 2020).

Why this could succeed: Urban Jungle’s expansion of its flexible insurance coverage into homeowners insurance creates a stickier value proposition.

• Urban Jungle calls its business model subscription insurance, which means that users can change or cancel at any time, without any hidden fees. Users pay the same price no matter whether they purchase policies annually or on a rolling monthly contract.
• Urban Jungle specifically targets younger homeowners who likely rented before they needed homeowners insurance. Around 15% of customers who moved on from Urban Jungle said it was because they had bought their first home and had to switch from renters to home insurance. The new offering lets Urban Jungle upsell homeowner coverage to its existing renter policy holders rather than losing their business when they buy their first home.

The bigger picture: The early-stage UK home and contents insurtech market offers big opportunities:

• Although Urban Jungle doubled its user base over the past year, highlighting the growth opportunity, the UK contents insurtech market is still relatively small. Competitor Getsafe just hit 10,000 policyholders in the UK—compared to nearly 200,000 users in its home market of Germany. Meanwhile the US already boasts established players like Lemonade with 1 million customers.
• Despite their relative newness, insurtechs like Getsafe and Urban Jungle have a large addressable market: 25% of the UK population lacks contents insurance, per Getsafe. Additionally, 33% of respondents cited contents insurance as “too expensive,” which bodes well for Urban Jungle’s affordable and transparent pricing.