Budweiser’s Intriguing Stunt

Budweiser Canada garnered attention in recent days by teasing the possibility that it was entering the insurance market. How would that even work for the brewing company? What kind of insurance? How would Budweiser underwrite it? How would it process claims?

A few days later, Budweiser said it was really just setting up a raffle, with “barbeque insurance” as the prize. If something happens to cancel your barbeque — even if you messed up and ran out of propane — you can file a “claim” with Budweiser. The company will then randomly select winners, who will receive as much as $2,500 in “insurance.”

But, even once it was unmasked as a publicity stunt, the Budweiser announcement raises intriguing possibilities for “embedded insurance” and for the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) to build whole ecosystems.

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