Original text here from Patrice Bernard (LinkedIn)
On the occasion of a funding round for Eyst, Generali has revealed its collaboration with the French startup. In certain situations, it now offers policyholders a prepaid solution that not only delivers instant compensation, with no upfront payment required, but also includes a few additional benefits.
Thanks to a partnership with specialized payment issuer Edenred, the startup enables insurers to provide a virtual card to their customers as soon as a claim declaration or reimbursement request has been approved. Compatible with Google Pay and Apple Pay, the card is sent by SMS and can be activated in a single step. To prevent misuse, it has the distinctive feature of being accepted only by the merchant categories for which it has been configured.
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The product adapts to various use cases, among which Eyst and Generali cite, for example, coverage of alternative medicine consultations in the health sector or the use of a locksmith after a lost-keys incident in home insurance. Scenarios are also being considered in the mobility space. Each use case is associated with a contractual flat amount and its own beneficiary restrictions (a duly identified practitioner or tradesperson, in the examples above).
While this approach of restricting card usage by professional category may raise legitimate concerns—particularly given the sometimes approximate management of such data in the financial industry—Eyst responds by offering real-time access to transaction data. This gives insurers both unprecedented visibility into their customers’ actual practices and a highly valuable level of control to fight fraud effectively.
Beyond these advantages, Generali has worked directly with the startup’s teams to add an extra feature to its version of the solution, in the form of cashback, i.e. the reimbursement of part of the expenses incurred (under conditions that have not been specified). I imagine this extension, which will be integrated into Eyst’s standard offering, is intended to encourage adoption among users who may be hesitant about a system that could appear worrying due to its novelty or its constraints.
In summary, there should be no mistake: despite the narrative highlighting its (very real) benefits for consumers, this type of compensation solution built on modern technologies above all enables much tighter control over claims management for insurers, thanks to the transparency of electronic payment platforms and the steering capabilities they now provide.
