DEVELOPMENT

How to Make a Car Insurance App?

Published: June 19, 2024

10 min read

Are you looking for new opportunities to improve the level of service quality for your mobile audience? Or maybe you want your audience to be more loyal to your Insurance Brand? That’s something that a mobile application can help you do!

Car insurance app development will provide your insurance company with remarkable benefits:

What is the potential of a mobile car insurance app for your business?

⏱ Your mobile audience (which is probably between 20-35 y.o.) spends about 54-66% of their time in mobile apps, while mobile web accounts only for 7%. That’s why your website (even optimized for mobile) can’t provide you with great results.

🤖 You will need fewer employees and can cut operational expenses since mobile technologies (like chatbots or live support) will let you interact with people more efficiently.

🤝 It’s easier to reach your customers through a mobile app. Additional insurances and roadside services - with an application it can be offered and bought with just a few taps, leading to your revenue growth.

🔋 The workload of your insurers is reduced, providing them with more time for other tasks (for example, to acquire new customers).

📊 A mobile app helps to make your business more transparent and open for a deep analysis. This provides you with the possibility to make more data-driven decisions.

🚀 Your business can grow promptly. Users can access your services via mobile application even if you don’t have an office in their city or region.

Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Yet, while the benefits of a mobile car insurance app may be quite obvious for you (after all, that’s how you turned up on this article, right?), the development itself is rather something that requires a good Partner alongside.

Except for the development itself, such a Partner should hold a Discovery Stage with you in order to understand what exactly you’re trying to achieve with your Product and come up with a list of core features to create own auto insurance app.

To get more information on what a Discovery Stage is and what steps it normally includes, feel free to follow the link to our article where we talk about the Project Discovery in detail:

Reach the mobile audience with the mobile application!

Reach the mobile audience with the mobile application! (image by Darren W.)

But as for now - let’s imagine a Car Insurance company, which has the aim to increase the level of service, brand loyalty, reach out to the mobile audience - and as a result, increase the yearly income per client. Which features should the app for such a car insurance company have? Here’s how we see it at Stormotion!
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📱 Features of an Auto Insurance App: Your Top 7 List

During car insurance app development it’s necessary to keep the balance:

  • your application should meet the expectations of users, improve the way you deliver services to them, work smoothly and has a nice UI;
  • at the same time, it’s better to start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and develop gradually, so you don’t waste your time and resources.

Let’s take a closer look at the features of an auto insurance app MVP!
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# 1: Vehicle Information Screen 🚙

Quite obvious, that before user buys the insurance, they have to provide some details about his car. The typical workflow is to offer him to fill in some information about his car: year, make and model. Forget about the paperwork!

However, even such a standard and kind of boring procedure can improve the quality of your services as you develop an app for a car insurance company. Let the UK-based Cuvva car insurance application inspire you!

Prior to buying an insurance, your users will be asked to fill in some info

Prior to buying an insurance, your users will be asked to fill in some info (image by Gabriel Paunescu)

Cuvva’s users are asked to enter only the vehicle’s reg plate. Due to the integration with the GB DVLA, the app extracts all the car data straight from this database, killing two birds with one stone:

  • On the one hand, it simplifies the whole process from the user’s side.
  • On the other hand, it extracts data from the official database, leaving almost no room for mistakes or fraud.
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# 2: Quotes Screen 📖

When the basic info is entered, it’s time to offer users available insurance plans.

Here are a few recommendations to follow:

  1. Place one plan per page. It will focus users’ attention on it and let you provide all the key details. Also, users can move to the next plan by swiping right or down.
  2. Use bright and catchy colours for the CTA buttons. It’s a known technique to draw users’ attention and push people towards the desired action.
  3. Don’t hide real prices. It annoys people a lot, so make sure that they won’t face any difficulties when trying to understand how much your services are going to cost them.
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# 3: Payment Processing Screen 💳

When a user is interested in a specific insurance plan - don’t waste your time and close the deal! As a Mobile Development Agency, we can build a car insurance app and integrate a smooth & secure payment gateway - either Braintree or Stripe - for this purpose.

This is the last step before users actually pay for your insurance

This is the last step before users actually pay for your insurance (image by Digital55)

From the UI perspective, this screen should include some basic info about the chosen insurance policy from the previous screens, like:

  • Insurance type.
  • Policy length (or duration).
  • Start and end dates.
  • Total price.

Also, this is the right moment to remember about your legal obligations since it’s the last step before users exchange their money for your insurance guarantees. Therefore, leave a place for a “Policy & Terms” button.

Moreover, since you want to build a car insurance app for an audience that’s on a first-name basis with mobile technologies, they should be able to save their credit cards for quick payments & access in the future. EV charging station apps with premium features must also integrate these, affecting the cost to develop an ev charging station finder app like PlugShare.

Keep in mind: this kind of data requires a special protection.

# 4: Support Screen 💬

One of the advantages of your own mobile car insurance app, or similar solutions like EMSP software development, is the simplified interaction with your company. How can it be implemented? Through a support chat!

It opens a bunch of new possibilities regarding your users:

  • A 24/7 Live Support where users can get any kind of help from your professionals.
  • It can also become a source of an updated information regarding the claims processing.
  • Chatbots can help users navigate through the app and provide with answers to basic questions.

Moreover, another reason to create own auto insurance app with a Support Feature is that your business will get benefits, too. For example, you can significantly cut operational expenses since you will require fewer employees to provide support for your clients. Similarly, adding a support feature is crucial when learning how to build an e-scooter app to provide users with real-time help

# 5: Policy Review Screen 👁

Of course, users should always have direct access to their insurance IDs, and this is where knowing how to implement AI into an app can help provide personalized and efficient user interfaces. The typical solution is to add a separate screen (it’s usually known as the Policy Review or ID Screen) where users can check a policy type and number, vehicle’s specification, effective and expiration dates etc.

Users should be always able to check a current insurance plan

Users should be always able to check a current insurance plan (image by Bartosz Bąk)

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# 6: Claim Filing Screen ✍️

The insurance business may be the only industry in the world in which both you and your clients hope that there will never be a real need to use your services :)

However, you definitely need to add the Claim Filing Screen to your car insurance app. Its main goal is to simplify and speed up the claim processing. Moreover, a chatbot can eliminate paperwork; users will file claims on their own, not involving your staff - isn’t that a great example of optimization and services quality improvement at the same time?

Claiming screen can significantly improve the UX

Claiming screen can significantly improve the UX (image by Dylan Arendse)

From the development perspective, there are several solutions that your Tech Partner can implement:

  1. Create a chat (don’t confuse it with live support) where users will be able to file a claim in real-time.
  2. Another solution is to integrate claim processing into the live support chat. It will eliminate the need to create a separate screen and simplify the navigation within the app.
  3. Finally, we can build a car insurance app with a chatbot that will help to quickly report the accident (just like in the State Farm mobile application).
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# 7: Push Notifications 🔔

We can’t imagine the MVP Product Backlog and the list of features of an auto insurance app without Push Notifications. Why do you need them?

  • To keep users informed about how their claim processing is going.
  • To encourage them to buy your insurance if they left the app at some stage.
  • To remind users to prolong the insurance if their one is going to expire soon.

As you can see, Push Notifications can serve both marketing and service purposes, providing noticeable benefits for your business and customers at the same time.

So, these were the essential features of an auto insurance app that will ensure the basic functionality and should cover the expectations of your audience. However, if your app shows good retention numbers and you managed to get an additional budget from your C-Level , it’s also possible to enhance it with the advanced functionality. Here are several ideas for you!
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👍 Extra Features For Your Mobile Car Insurance App

At Stormotion, we usually think of our clients’ Projects in a long-run perspective. Therefore, we try to plan a few steps ahead, including what features don’t fit the initial scope and have to be delivered in the next releases. Here are our ideas regarding car insurance app development!

For example, already mentioned chatbots are a great example of advanced functionality that can be kept for further releases. Yet, since they are involved in direct interaction with your customers and can greatly improve the UX, we recommend planning it for one of the early post-release updates (or even include it in the MVP Scope).

A good car insurance app should include chatbots

A good car insurance app should include chatbots (image by Mary Kvitt)

If you want to develop an app for a car insurance company that will go even beyond users’ expectations, try combining AI algorithms with GPS services and motion sensors. This approach is used in Allstate and Root car insurance applications.

In a few words, the idea behind this nontrivial combination is to analyze driving behavior and provide users with rewards (for example, decreasing the cost of an insurance policy) based on this data. Meeting the criteria of “better driving” usually means:

  • Not going above some speed limit (in the Allstate app they have 80 mph which equals about 120-130 kph).
  • Limited night-time trips.
  • Smooth braking and turns.

Finally, you can enhance your mobile application with different roadside tools. It can include any services that will be useful to the drivers: fuel delivery, tire change, jump start, gas station finder, parking reminder, and so on.

As the automotive industry moves towards sustainable practices, integrating features that cater to e-mobility meaning, such as insurance plans tailored for electric vehicles and incentivized premiums for eco-friendly driving habits, can position your car insurance app as a forward-thinking solution in the era of electric mobility.

One more thing: your Dev Squad will need some specific technical tools to create your own auto insurance app. Let’s mention some of them!

⚙️ Tech Stack For Car Insurance App Development

An appropriate Tech Stack can significantly decrease required time and cost to develop a car insurance application. Moreover, the right tools can ensure the smooth work and great UX of your app. That’s why it’s important to choose the proper set of APIs and SDKs.

Our Stormotion Developers recommend using following tools to develop an app for a car insurance company:

  • Braintree SDK, Stripe API - to process in-app payments.
  • Firebase API or OneSignal SDK - to implement push notifications.
  • Vehicle Status or DVLA Search (for the UK companies) APIs - to get all the details about vehicle’s status and eliminate the extensive paperwork.
  • Google Roads API - to define the speed limit for a given road segment.
  • Theft Alarm API - to alert users if someone is trying to damage or steal his car.
  • As always, we recommend building the app using React Native since it’s a perfect choice if you want to create a cost-effective cross-platform application with native UX.

💰 Cost to Build an Insurance App

If you are interested in what the costs to develop an app for an insurance business are, check the estimate below:

MVP Features Estimated in Hours
Using React Native

⚙️ Features

⏳ Min Hours

⏱ Max Hours

🛠 Setup Technical Foundations

8

12

👋 Onboarding

8

12

📋 Quoting Flow

78

100

Fill in the driver’s data

12

16

Fill in the car’s data

18

24

Insurance Plans Screen

12

16

Detailed plan info

16

20

Recall quote

20

24

💸 Payment Flow

40

50

📝 My Insurance

12

16

📋 Claiming Flow

124

158

Choose a type of claim

36

48

Take photos of the damage

28

36

Review the claim

20

24

My claims

40

50

🤙 Support Flow

48

56

Live chat

36

40

Check your agent’s profile

12

16

🚚 Roadside Assistance Flow

138

172

Select a Service

24

32

Reval your location

50

60

Track the help on the map

64

80

🔔 Push Notifications

24

30

⏱Total Hours

356

448

💵Approximate costs

$14,240

$17,920

So the approximate car insurance app development costs are between $14-18,000. While calculating the cost to create an insurance app we used the average rate of $40/hour. This rate and the final costs may depend on many different factors, so to get an accurate estimate, please, contact us!

Get expert insights on the cost to make a Lime-like scooter app in our detailed cost breakdown, based on real-world experience!

💡 Takeaways

Now you have everything to create own auto insurance app: a list of features for your mobile project and a set of technical tools to implement them.

As a Development Agency, we’re ready to share our Experience and Knowledge with you and become your Tech Partner that will help to deliver a top-notch Mobile Product for your audience.

Want to develop an App for your Car Insurance Company or ask additional questions? Hit the button below and we’ll be right there to help you with your idea!

Develop your Insurance App with Us!

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Stormotion client Alexander Wolff, CPO from [object Object]

When I was working with Stormotion, I forgot they were an external agency. They put such effort into my product it might as well have been their own. I’ve never worked with such a client-focused company before.

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