Contents insurance for renters, quoted from a walk round the room.

Renters think they own nothing worth insuring, until they add it up. So the app adds it up with them, one room at a time.

The brief

Kestle launched in 2016 to sell monthly contents insurance to people who rent, with no long contract and cover that moves house with them. Two years in it had 22,000 customers, most of them recommended by a friend, and a quote form inherited from its underwriter that asked 38 questions.

Fourteen per cent of people who started a quote bought a policy. The team’s own research showed most renters guessed their belongings were worth less than half their real value, and many assumed the landlord’s insurance covered them. A first television campaign was funded and booked, and the product had to be ready for the traffic.

The idea

Instead of asking what your contents are worth, the app asks what is in the room. You walk round with your phone, tap through a short list of things people usually own, and the total builds as you go. Most people are surprised by the number, and that surprise does the selling.

The brand is loud on purpose, a heavy black and one yellow, because renters had been an afterthought in insurance for long enough. The thirty-second TV spot is a single take of one room, slowly laid out with everything its tenant would have to replace.

What we made

Identity and wordmark
Quote flow: six questions and a room walk
Policy app and claims flow
Voice guidelines and policy letters
30-second TV spot and two cut-downs
Copy review with the underwriter’s compliance team

A hand holding a phone with a glowing yellow screen in a narrow hallway, a bicycle against the wall behind

Walk round the room

Bedroom, kitchen, hallway. The app suggests what people usually own in each room and you tap what you have. In testing, the average total came to £9,200, more than twice what the same people had guessed at the start.

A phone showing the Kestle app in yellow and black beside a yellow welcome pack and a set of keys on a dark surface — The quote flow, the welcome pack and the one yellow that runs through both.

How the mark moves

The wordmark drops in heavy and lands with one small bounce, like a box put down on a new floor. It closes the TV spot and every confirmation screen.

A small rented bedroom with its belongings laid out in neat rows, one yellow lamp glowing in the dark — One room, one take, thirty seconds. The spot ran for six weeks on television and video on demand.

What changed

of quotes now become policies, up from 14%
In the six months after launch, at a similar average premium.
questions to a price, down from 38
The underwriter agreed to ask the rest after purchase, or not at all.
median time to a price, down from eleven
Including the walk round the room.

Who made it

Orvel

Freya LundStrategy and voiceLondon
Tomás FerreiraProduct designLisbon
Kayode AdebayoTV spotLondon

With

Client team: Hamza Qureshi, Lotte Verhoeven, Callum Reid
TV spot: Kayode Adebayo (director), Femi Lawal (camera), Joe Marr (production design)
Voice-over: Saoirse Kenny
Research participants: 31 renters in London, Manchester and Glasgow

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