Home insurance startup Locket partners with reformed burglar

London-based insurtech Locket has joined forces with a reformed burglar to create a series of educational videos aimed at increasing customers’ home security and burglary risk prevention. 

The series explores the hidden signs that burglars use to spot easy targets like unoccupied homes, as well as the simple changes consumers can make to protect themselves and deter intruders.

After a close call with the law, ex-burglar Michael Fraser turned away from crime and became a security consultant dedicated to stopping criminals.

He has joined the insurtech as a white-hat security consultant aimed at exposing the psychology behind Britain’s most notorious burglars to prevent homeowners becoming victims.

Krystian Zajac, Locket’s chief executive, told Insurance Times: “In fields like IT and software development, there’s a long tradition of hackers and cyber criminals going straight and using their criminal knowledge for good.

“We wanted to take that idea of a ‘white hat’ or ‘ethical hacker’ and apply it to other areas – like burglaries, fraud, bike thefts and car thefts.

”This is our first partnership with a reformed burglar and he’s working with us on a series of videos where he scopes out potential targets through the eyes of the thief and explains how they choose targets, how they work out if there’s valuables inside, how they approach the property, the easiest ways to gain entrance and – of course – the things they hate and how to use them to avoid becoming a victim yourself.”

Preventing claims

Locket is a home insurance insurtech startup dedicated to helping consumers protect their valuables via technology.

Zajac explained: “It’s part of a bigger scheme around trying to actively prevent claims, rather than resolve them with payouts – we’ve even built a new pricing model that shares the claims reduction benefit with customers in the form of discounted insurance and other perks and rewards.

”In that respect, we’re building on the successes of other insurance verticals like vehicular telematics – your price is based on how safely you drive – and health.”

Customers of insurance verticals that reward risk averse behaviour could, for example, be rewarded with perks for taking a certain number of steps a day, or visiting the gym a certain number of times times per month.

Zajac continued: “It’s early days, but in our little pilot study, 14% of participants have already found a ‘claim waiting to happen’ somewhere around their property – with an underwriting saving of £221.75 per household.”