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Building Brands Podcast · Building Brands Marketing

Taking Advantage Of A Gap In The Market

·29 min·2 clips
Austin Green explains how Romley spotted a huge gap in RV insurance that traditional insurers avoided.
This episode features host Brayden Pope interviewing Austin Green, Director of Go-to-Market at Romley, a company specializing in recreational vehicle insurance. They explore how Romley identified and filled a significant gap in the RV insurance market. Romley originated from its sister company, Outdoorsy, a peer-to-peer RV rental platform often described as the Airbnb of RVs. Outdoorsy discovered a major issue where RV owners renting their vehicles risked voiding their personal insurance policies, as insurers considered rentals a commercial activity. Romley first built an episodic insurance product embedded within the Outdoorsy marketplace to cover rentals, generating over $60 million in written premium. They then created a personal lines RV insurance policy that explicitly allows peer-to-peer rentals, protecting hosts from claim denials. The company also capitalized on the growing "van life" trend by becoming a primary insurer for camper van conversions. Romley developed a fully digital, end-to-end insurance purchasing experience, a first for the RV insurance space. This digital focus allowed them to capture customers at critical moments, like at dealerships where proof of insurance is required for financing. Their marketing strategy heavily utilizes paid search and social channels, managed primarily by an in-house team. Austin notes the importance of diversification, as changes like AI-driven Answer Engine Optimization are reducing traditional search traffic. A key lesson was avoiding over-reliance on any single channel, such as affiliate marketing, which was impacted by shifting search engine results. The episode highlights how integrating insurance directly into a rental marketplace created a synergistic ecosystem. The conversation is educational and strategic, focusing on practical business development and marketing insights. Listeners interested in entrepreneurship, niche market strategies, insurance technology, or digital marketing would find this episode valuable. Those seeking entertainment or narrative-driven content might prefer to skip it.

As heard by us

A close look at how a niche insurance brand grew by serving an underserved market.

Austin Green explains how Romley found room to grow in recreational vehicle insurance by focusing on a corner of the market that was being ignored.

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Why you'd press play

You want a straight look at how an underserved RV insurance brand mixes paid search, paid social, affiliates, and partnerships to drive go-to-market results.

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