How to Name Your Insurance Business
Hi! I’m Samantha at BrandNewName. I’m here to help you to find a great name for your insurance business.
Just for illustration purposes, I’m going to use a fictional insurance business to take you through the step-by-step process.
Every successful business has a mission statement at its core. A mission statement defines your business, both today and in the future. Knowing who you are and where you are going is vital to the focus you need to maintain in your business.
My Mission Statement:
To provide a full-service insurance app that not only insures your automobile but also connects clients to approved area businesses providing car services and products. Need a new battery? The app will direct you to stores/service providers near you and their charges.
Preparation
Write a Brand Brief
A brand brief is a way of fleshing out your mission statement, or if you’re having trouble writing it, zeroing in your focus. It’s not at all difficult, but it is pretty important, so we’ll take you through the whole process.
Once finished, a brand brief should be kept somewhere you always use it, or at least where you can get to it easily. This one-page document will help you keep your insurance business focused in the right direction.
What is my product?(What product or service are you offering?)
My answer: Full-service automobile insurance app offering car care and upkeep information as well as traditional auto insurance.
Who is going to buy your product?(Who is your customer? Who will your product appeal to?)
My answer: Clients who need information on automobiles, from purchase to upkeep and repairs.
How do you expect your brand to affect your clients? (How will your customer feel while using my product?)
My answer: Relieved, calm, informed.
What Does Your Business Aspire to Become? (Don’t hold back - where do you want to be 5/10/20 years down the road? Visualize!)
My answer: A auto app that features a widely connected group of services and products with ratings and reviews.
Value Added: (Why you instead of the competition? What’s your edge?)
My answer: Streamlining automobile care to a single app.
Descriptive Focus: (How will clients describe your business?)
My answer: Simple, streamlined, supportive, helpful.
There you go. Your insurance business brand brief. A simple tool that will guide your choices and focus for the long haul.
Interested in Personalized Name Ideas for Your Brand Brief?
Competitive Brand Names in Your Industry
Insurance is a form of risk management. When you sell someone insurance, you are selling them peace of mind.
The insurance business also gives rise to some of the most hilarious, terrifying, and ridiculous stories of any business. Here’s just a sample:
- While vacationing in Australia, one man filed a claim after his car door was kicked in by a wild camel. Fortunately, his claim was approved because he had video evidence to prove he wasn’t making it up.
- Snakes love cool, dark places. A family in Texas saw a rattlesnake coming up out of their toilet. Luckily, they had home insurance which paid for a plumber (presumably accompanied by a snake catcher!) They also found 23 snakes in the plumbing system and under their home!
- One insurance broker had to deny a family’s claim for a new 60” smart TV. An interactive video game caused one of the sons to throw his controller at the screen in frustration.
Giving the competition a look will give you a good idea of why they chose their own name and may help you focus on the best names for your business. Let’s take a look at some of the newer, successful insurance business names and find out what went into their name.
LEMONADE
Lemonade is insurance for the digital age. It has an app, using AI and chatbot to process claims. It gives a portion of its underwriting profits to a nonprofit organization that the client chooses at sign-up. Lemonade is registered as a public benefit corporation - its mission statement includes, “transforming insurance from a necessary evil into a social good." In other words, making lemonade out of lemons. A perfect expression-based name choice.
INSURIFY
Founded in 2013, Insurify is an auto and home insurance comparison-shopping website. Partnering with such insurance behemoths as Liberty Mutual, MetLife, and Nationwide, Insurify offers personalized quotes from its website and, thru a Facebook Messenger Chatbot, allows users to compare and buy insurance directly from Facebook Messenger. Its invented name is catchy and memorable and simplifies its message to the consumer.
LADDER
Ladder Life Insurance was founded and developed on the principle that life changes, and your life insurance policy should accommodate those changes without policy fees and penalties. Their experiential name was chosen to reflect the laddering up (family growth) and laddering down (smaller mortgage, children grown).
METROMILE
Metromile is breaking new ground in automobile insurance. Their name says it all: clients pay by the mile. They have an interactive app and a reputation for customer service, but the big story is their pay-by-mile method of determining insurance premiums, and their descriptive name shares this perfectly.
MERCURY INSURANCE CORPORATION
Mercury Insurance is a multi-line, Fortune 500 company offering homeowners, auto, renters, and business insurance. According to their founder, George Joseph, they choose Mercury as an evocative name referencing the fast and nimble Roman God of business and merchants.
Find Your Brainstorming Group
It’s time to brainstorm. Who should help?
You’re looking for creative and intelligent people who have a solid understanding of the insurance business.
They don’t have to be in the insurance business. Include people who know insurance because they are and have been insured - preferably in more than one kind of insurance.
Need More Perspectives?
Sometimes, you can do everything right and you still don’t find the magic name that feels right for your insurance business.
Don’t be discouraged. Begin the process again using the names that came out of your first brainstorming session.
You can also try broadening your brainstorming group through a naming contest!
Want to Know More?
Brainstorming
Terrific! You’ve done the prep work and the industry research. You’ve pulled together a fantastic team for brainstorming the perfect name for your insurance business.
Brainstorming can be a free-spirited process with names and ideas randomly suggested and collected, but this kind of session tends to be more chaotic than productive.
Control the Creative Chaos - Using simple brainstorming techniques can broaden your creative focus, leading to great names that would never have surfaced without direction.
These techniques actually allow your brain to expand and let a variety of names and ideas be fully assimilated.
Stylistic variety - You’ll want to experiment with different name styles and tones so that you get a wide variety of options to choose from later.
Note: For my insurance business, I’ve come up with 3 name ideas for each type, but of course you are free to come up with more for your own list. We have found that at least 3 will help you broaden your search.
Descriptive Names
Descriptive names describe your product or service. Metromile is an example.
My descriptive name ideas:
- All-in-One Auto Insurance
- Complete Car Care Insurance
- Car Connect Insurance
Invented Names
Insurify is an invented name. It can’t be found in any dictionary, but just like Google and Etsy, it is a force in the world of 2021. Invented names are totally made up. That allows you tremendous freedom and creativity.
My invented name ideas:
- Cartiva Insurance
- Stireapp Insurance
- Voxicar Insurance
Evocative Names
Mercury Insurance is an example of evocative insurance, which uses emotion, memory, instinct, and color to take your senses on a small journey and allow you to feel what their product offers. Other examples are Red Bull and Honey.
My evocative name ideas:
- BlueSkies Auto Insurance
- AutoSwan Insurance
- StoneWheel Insurance
Expression-Based Names
Expression names are simply names that are easy to remember because we hear some form of them in day-to-day living. Lemonade Insurance easily references the common expression “Making lemonade out of lemons.”
My expression-based name ideas:
- OnTheRoadAgain Car Insurance
- EasyRider Insurance
- FastandFastidious Insurance
Put All Your Name Ideas in One List
All the name ideas I came up with during the brainstorming stage:
- All-in-One Auto Insurance
- Complete Car Care Insurance
- Car Connect Insurance
- Cartiva Insurance
- Stireapp Insurance
- Voxicar Insurance
- BlueSkies Auto Insurance
- AutoSwan Insurance
- StoneWheel Insurance
- OnTheRoadAgain Car Insurance
- EasyRider Insurance
- FastandFastidious Insurance
THE CUTTING BOARD
Let’s start trimming the list with a series of prompts.
Cut the Weakest Links
Some of your names just don’t work. Get rid of them.
I feel that these names are my weakest links:
- StireApp Insurance - So clumsy, which is not a good look.
- StoneWheel Insurance - Too heavy.
- All-in-One Auto Insurance - Too long.
Check Against Best Practices
There are some widely accepted parameters to finding the right name, that it’s a good idea to check. Maybe the name you love doesn’t fit and that’s okay, but let’s take a look at them as we curate our lists.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself during this process:
- Is the name simple and easy to remember?
- Is the name easy to comprehend, pronounce, and spell?
- Is there differentiation from your competitors?
- Does the name mean something or convey a relevant vibe?
- Is the name flexible enough to grow with my business?
Name ideas I am cutting:
- Voxicar Insurance - My mind keeps going to boxcar.
- OnTheRoadAgain Car Insurance - The song is great, but it could be limiting in the future.
Go Back to Your Brief
You have great names right in front of you. Are they great names for you though? This is when your brand brief goes to work. Check each of these names against your brand brief. How do they hold up?
- What matches your goals?
- Which name complements your current product or service without limiting your future dreams for your insurance business?
- How does each name make you feel? Don’t dismiss those feelings.
Names that aren’t a good fit for my brand:
- Cartiva Insurance - I don’t feel any connection with this name, even though it’s clever.
- Car Connect Insurance - It seems bland without being a perfect fit.
Make a Shortlist:
You’ve cut your names down, and you finally have a shortlist. All of the names left on this list should have real potential.
Here is my shortlist:
- All-in-One Auto Insurance
- Complete Car Care Insurance
- BlueSkies Auto Insurance
- AutoSwan Insurance
- StoneWheel Insurance
- EasyRider Insurance
- FastandFastidious Insurance
Check if It’s Available
Time to check each of your shortlist names against a domain name registrar like Godaddy. Is the .com of your favorite available? Having a .com name can cost a little more, but it’s the most widely accepted and reputable domain and makes it easiest for your customers to find you.
These two names weren’t available to register in my chosen TLDs (Top Level Domains):
- All-in-One Auto Insurance
- StoneWheel Insurance
Now I have five finalists to choose from.
- CompleteCarCareInsurance
- BlueSkies AutoInsurance
- AutoSwan Insurance
- EasyRider Insurance
- FastandFastidious Insurance
Get Feedback
Give your finalists another look by getting outside feedback. It might help to use a different group than your initial brainstorming session who will come at the names with fresh eyes.
After my feedback, I’m eliminating:
AutoSwan Insurance - it seemed strange (not in a good way) to a few people.
EasyRider Insurance - people either loved it or hated it.
Make Your Final Choice:
There are only three names left on my final list:
CompleteCarCareInsurance
BlueSkiesAutoInsurance
FastandFastidious Insurance
Hopefully, you now have two or three names you love. Walk away from your list for a couple of hours, or even better, overnight.
When you look at your list again, go with your gut to pick the perfect name for your insurance business.
My final choice is FastandFastidious!
What If It Didn’t Work?
So, just didn’t love any of the names you came up with? Try not to panic, it’s a process, and just like any other important business process, it may take a little more time.
You are not, by the way, back at square one. Any brainstorming session is likely to come up with a least a few names you like more than the rest, but they just aren’t right. Use those names, though, as a baseline for another session. Eventually, you will find the perfect name for your business.
Start a Naming Contest
No time? Try another option. Start a naming contest that will give you a list of highly personalized names for your insurance business.