Relevance wins: Why high-utilisation VAPs start with customer meaning, not product volume

Most organisations offer a suite of Value‑Added Products (VAP’s), but not all VAPs perform equally. The difference between high-performing and underperforming VAPs is simple: relevance. The question every organisation should ask is: Are customers actually using the benefits they’re paying for?

The VAP market has become increasingly crowded. Across insurers, OEMs, finance houses, dealers and mobility ecosystems, customers are presented with multiple benefits that promise convenience, protection and peace of mind.

Utilisation is more than an operational metric. It is a signal of relevance. When customers actively use a benefit, it means the product has moved beyond being an optional extra and has become part of the customer’s lived ownership experience.

When utilisation is low, it often tells us something less comfortable: the proposition may be well-intended, but it is not sufficiently understood, needed or accessible.

The shift: From adding benefits to earning usage

For many years, a VAP strategy has often been shaped by breadth: more benefits, broader bundles and more visible product features. But customers do not measure value by the number of line items in a brochure. They measure it by whether the product helps them at a moment that matters.

This is where relevance becomes the real differentiator. A high-utilisation VAP is not necessarily the most complex product, the most heavily bundled product or the one with the longest list of features. It is the product that connects clearly to a recognised customer need, is simple to understand, and can be accessed with minimal friction.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to build more. It is to build with sharper intent. Product Development teams need to ask a more disciplined question: what will make this benefit meaningful enough for a customer to use?

Data should challenge assumptions, not simply confirm them

Customer relevance cannot be designed through instinct alone. Behavioural, claims, usage and market data give us a more honest view of what customers value in practice. They show where customers engage, where they hesitate, where they abandon a process and where perceived value does not match the price paid.

Used well, data forces better product decisions. It helps separate benefits that genuinely support the customer from those that merely add weight to the proposition. It also gives product, pricing and operational teams a shared evidence base for deciding whether a benefit should be retained, redesigned, simplified or retired.

Segmentation is where relevance becomes commercial

A broad, average-customer view rarely produces strong utilisation. Different customer groups experience value differently. A dealer customer, a fleet operator, a financed vehicle owner and an insurance policyholder may all need support, but not necessarily the same support, at the same time, or through the same channel.

This makes modularity critical. The future of VAP design is not unlimited choice; it is disciplined flexibility. Benefit architecture should allow propositions to be tailored by segment, channel and risk profile, while still protecting pricing integrity, governance standards and operational scalability.

Simplicity is a utilisation strategy

Even a relevant benefit can fail if it is hard to understand or difficult to use. Customers should not have to work out what a product means, when it applies or how to access it. If the value is hidden in technical language, complex exclusions or a cumbersome claims process, utilisation will suffer.

This is why communication and service design belong at the centre of VAP strategy.

Plain language, clear usage triggers, transparent limits and proactive reminders are not administrative details. They are the mechanisms that convert product ownership into product usage.

The leadership question: Are we designing products customers will use?

The organisations that will lead in VAP performance are not the ones with the longest list of benefits. They will be the ones that can prove that their propositions are relevant, usable and commercially sustainable. High utilisation is not accidental; it is the result of disciplined product design, evidence-based pricing, clear customer communication and operational follow-through.

Relevance wins because it creates the conditions for trust. When customers understand the benefit, recognise its purpose and can use it when it matters, the product becomes more than an add-on. It becomes part of the value promise. That is the blueprint for high-utilisation VAPs.