Interview with Alex Stone of The Bike Insurer
January 30th, 2010
www.thebikeinsurer.co.uk is the UK’s market leader in motorbike insurance comparisons. Founder, Alex Stone, has built up the business in rapid time. His concept, the first of its kind in the world, was conceived in 2005 and has a year-on-year average growth of 27%. Amongst its various USPs is the guarantee to provide customers with the cheapest online quote as well as the revolutionary offer of granting free legal cover to customers with every quote, not just with each policy bought. The business reports a multi-million pound annual turnover which Stone attributes to taking calculated risks.
Like all entrepreneurial ventures, the initial risk in starting a business from scratch proved to be the first major hurdle: “I’d left education at the age of 15 but a decade later I was carving a promising career working for an insurance broker,” explained Stone. “Thebikeinsurer.co.uk was an unchartered concept, however, I had to gamble on developing the product and keep faith that it would grow into the powerhouse I envisaged.”
Without both the training and experience that many of his peers had acquired, Stone’s leap into the business world was to be a brave one. His entrepreneurial character started to take shape as a schoolboy where he would sell football stickers and old trainers to classmates before he extended into selling used cars from home as a means of bolstering his income. In this search for new profit opportunities, Stone started to grow an astute mind for business.
“When I was 17 I started finding the odd car for sale which had a low asking price. I’d gamble on using my wages to buy the motor with the aim of selling it on for a profit. Within months I had fifteen to twenty cars on my hands at any one time and was working all hours of the day,” Stone added.
Once he had entered into the insurance sector, Stone, a motorcycle enthusiast himself, recognised the need to aid other bikers in their search for insurance. Amongst the uprising of other, general price-comparison websites, Stone identified the potential gap in the market for a specialist and niche service for specific consumers. The site’s popularity was instant as were the paralleling demands of the business’ immediate growth.
“The start-up frenzy was extremely challenging and was even a risk to my health,” said Stone. “Such were the demands that I was admitted to hospital for 3 weeks with a stress-related illness. I was doing everything for the company and working twenty-hour days in the process but I was prepared to jeopardise my entire life as it stood for the company’s success.”
The business, now established for 5 years, is hugely efficient due to the nature of its true e-business ethos and consequently low overheads. However, Stone maintains a very much hands-on approach and is still greatly involved with the day-to-day running of the company.
Stone commented: “Nowadays the risks are different. We’re dedicated to propelling thebikeinsurer.co.uk forward and ensuring the product we offer retains our original philosophy of providing a beneficial service for our customers.”
“Thebikeinsurer.co.uk is built around the guarantee to find the cheapest online quote for users,” continued Stone. “Our quest to supply the most competitive package on the market generates its own problems and now we’ve built such a reputation, future decisions could put all this at risk.”
Average year-on-year growth for thebikeinsurer.co.uk currently stands at 27% and the company is forecasting a growth of 30% for 2010. The motorcycle industry per se has recorded a 25% growth in the last decade.
Stone’s other business interests include sister-site, www.thevaninsurer.co.uk, launched last year, and imminent plans for www.thecaravaninsurer.co.uk – another niche-market concept. He remains a leading authority in the motorcycle insurance industry and is attributed to pioneering change within the market by the leading research house, Biking News.
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Tags: Alex Stone, Insurer
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