November 2023
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Global InsurTech - A snapshot in numbers
22%
Increase in insurtech funding QoQ. With 119 deals globally
Only 1
new unicorns appears in Q3.
Source: CB Insights Q3 2023 State of Fintech Report
Vietnam Insurance outlook
According to the report from the General Statistics Office, insurance fee revenue in the third quarter of 2023 is estimated at 52.9 trillion VND, a decrease of 10.4% compared to the same period in 2022.
a decrease of 10.4%
While Payouts for insurance claims are estimated at 57.1 trillion VND,
reflecting a 30.2% increase.
The reason is since the beginning of 2023, a series of controversies related to bancassurance (insurance distribution through banks) has eroded confidence in the life insurance market specifically and the insurance industry in general, reaching its lowest point in nearly 30 years of development in Vietnam.
Growth rate of total earned premium from Q1/2021 - Q3/2023 (%)
Source: General Statistics Office (GSO)
Insurance revenue from some major banks in Vietnam
(bil VND)
Source: Author collected from financial reports, in “Khó bán bảo hiểm, có ngân hàng giảm tới 80% thu nhập
“
In the first nine months of the year, the total insurance revenue of eight banks reached 9409 billion VND, a 26.1% decrease compared to the same period last year, mirroring a trend observed in the second quarter when banks recorded a 24.2% decline in insurance revenue.
Among them, MB, leading the list, witnessed a 16.9% decrease in insurance sales revenue to 5989 billion VND. This decline resulted in a 28.21% decrease in net profit from insurance operations, down to 2105 billion VND.
Except for PG Bank, other banks experienced significant declines in insurance revenue, some up to nearly 80%. PG Bank's insurance revenue only increased from 17 billion VND to 19 billion VND, insignificant compared to MB, VPBank, or VIB.
Investment deals - South East Asia
Raised $2.4 million
| Sep 8, 2023
Saladin has successfully concluded its Pre-Series A funding round, spearheaded by Monk’s Hill Ventures. This investment round also received additional support and contributions from Saladin's pre-seed investors.
Saladin is an online platform that utilizes a multi-channel distribution system. It provides a destination for personalized insurance solutions. It specializes in insurtech, car insurance, home insurance, and embedded insurance. The company was founded in 2021 and is based in HCMC, Vietnam.
Raised $6.0 million
| Aug 29, 2023
Fintech startup MFast has raised US$6 million in a Series A funding round led by Wavemaker Partners, as it seeks to expand its presence in Vietnam and abroad.
Mfast develops a mobile application that lets Vietnamese users in remote areas access financial services. The application connects insurance and financial institutions with a network of promoters to provide services to rural people and those without much experience of working with banks or insurers. Mfast was founded in 2020 and is based in HCMC, Vietnam.
Raised $0.5 million
| Sep 25, 2023
Finology Group has concluded a pre-Series A funding, spearheaded by Silverlake Group. Investors were drawn to their innovative approach, which enhances financial access through its API-driven lending and insurance solutions.
Finology specializes in enabling access to financial products. It also enables businesses such as property developers, automotive distributors, and digital players to embed loans & and insurance products as part of their offerings. It was founded in 2017 and is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Raised $1.1 million
| Aug 15, 2023
CHOYS has concluded a seed funding round, raising $1.1 million, which supports CHOYS’ go-to-market strategy in Southeast Asia and strengthens its product development initiatives Investors that participated in the round include Wing Vasiksiri, Foremast, Antler, and Fintech Nation Fund.
They offer a digital InsurTech SaaS platform for personalized care services for employees. It enables employees to choose their insurance and build a financial safety net per their requirements. CHOYS was founded in 2022 and is based in Singapore
Source: Gallagher Re, CrunchBase
Partnership - Vietnam
Investment-linked insurance: Chubb Life diversifies their distribution channels
Sep 2023
Chubb Life x AVA
According to the cooperation agreement, AVA Vietnam Consulting and Communications Joint Stock Company (“AVA”) will distribute 3 products under the Universal Life Insurance business of Chubb Life Vietnam including: Flexible Financial Plan , Lifetime Financial Planning – Comprehensive Senior Benefits and Future Financial Planning; thereby helping customers make solid plans for the future based on their unique needs and goals.
AVA Vietnam Consulting and Communication Joint Stock Company officially launched in April 2022, is working as an insurance agency, and focus in broker channel. They set strategic goals to become the leading financial consulting and insurance agency.
Partnership - ASIA
Phone Protection: Igloo partners with Oppo as after-sales service
Oct 2023
Igloo x Oppo
Insurtech firm Igloo has partnered with smartphone manufacturers Oppo and realme to provide screen protection and warranty plans in Southeast Asia. Oppo Care, starting at US$0.074 per day, covers screen protection, while realme+ Care at US$0.0035 per day offers extended warranty and screen damage protection. The new services were launched in the Philippines with realme and in Singapore with Oppo, with plans for expansion into Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Consumers, can effortlessly access official warranties via a dedicated portal, synchronized in real time with the smartphone brands’ databases. Igloo enhances the process with QR code registration, improving distribution efficiency and in-store customer experience.
Partnership - ASIA
Embedded insurance: bolttech partners with telco group NJJ
Nov 2023
bolttech x NJJ
InsurTech firm bolttech has secured a partnership with telecoms group NJJ to offer embedded device insurance to European mobile operators within its portfolio, including Salt and Monaco Telecom.
This collaboration involves integrating relevant coverage seamlessly into the customer journey of NJJ-owned mobile operators. With existing partnerships like Salt in Switzerland, bolttech aims to provide efficient device protection services.
The deal builds on bolttech's extensive presence across 35 markets globally and strengthens its leadership in the device protection space. The partnership follows bolttech's recent agreement with Polish insurtech Digital Care and a new partnership with Three in Sweden.
Partnership - ASIA
Credit Life: Digital bank announces Sun Life partnership
Oct 2023
Sun Life x Tonik
Tonik, a digital bank in the Philippines, has announced a strategic alliance with Sun Life Grepa Financial with the primary objective of bolstering the financial wellbeing of their customers.
At the heart of this partnership is the launch of Payhinga, a credit life and disability insurance product that will complement Tonik's current loan offerings and will be readily accessible to customers applying for loans.
Payhinga will afford customers access to life and disability insurance, covering up to 120% of their loan amount. Additionally, it offers a two-month payment holiday, allowing customers to postpone their upcoming loan instalments in case of financial strain.
Insurance strictness in Vietnam
New regulation update on selling insurance : Circular 67/2023/TT-BTC
Insurance process in internet environment in Vietnam
An insurance agent/agent company is only provided with the entire process of delivering services and insurance products on the online platform for the following products:
- Health insurance with a term of 1 year or less.
- Term life insurance with a term of 1 year or less.
- Motor vehicle insurance.
- Insurance for trips and travel.
For other products, agent can only provide with a partial process for delivering services on the online platform.
applicable date: 02/11/2023.
For complex insurance products such as investment-linked insurance products, Circular No. 67 has added regulations requiring insurance agents to record the insurance consulting process (applied for agents also).
applicable date: 02/11/2023.
Must record (call) the investment-linked insurance consulting process
Banks and FIs: restricted from selling investment-linked insurance to borrowers
Circular No. 67 has added regulations that credit institutions are not allowed to advise, introduce, offer to sell, or arrange for the conclusion of linked insurance contracts. Invest for customers within 60 days before and after 60 days from the date of disbursement of the entire loan.
applicable date: 02/11/2023.
Health Declaration MUST be confirmed by the policyholder
Health Declaration Questionnaire for the Insured (for insurance products requiring health declaration) MUST be completed and verified by the policyholder
applicable date: 01/7/2024.
Innovative Products
FWD Affiliates Program
An innovative way to generate leads
What is FWD Affiliates?
A is a social media engagement platform that enables our agents to broaden their sales network beyond traditional sales channels. which features include:
- Implement affiliate information tracking in the sales process
- Allow agents to recruit public users as referrers in the system
- Allow affiliates to recruit public users as downline referrers in the system
- Allow users to send messages/posts with social channel apps to attract new leads and sales
- Enable to track the certificate with the contribution of affiliates
- Enable to pay referral fees to the affiliates from the agent's commission
For agents to
Get more leads
Get passive income
For Affiliates to
How it works?
How it is different from an agent app/agent-get-agent program?
Restrictions in life-insurance distribution
Strict regulations demand licenses and substantial experience for life insurance agency sales. This program empowers freelancers from various domains to earn income by attracting leads and forwarding genuine prospects to licensed agents.
Leveraging the power of social network
Where a Potential Customer subscribes to more than one product, the Affiliate who submitted the referrals linked to the Potential Customer shall be considered to have made one introduction. The agent allows the payment of the referral fees to the Affiliate to be taken from the Agent’s commission, which is called
Referral Fee.
There are 02 types of Referral Fee: Agent-to-Customer & Direct-to-Customer.
While Agent’s natural network will eventually dry up, by utilizing the rise of social networks, the programme has, since we first launched FWD Affiliates in Malaysia in March 2020 recruited over 8,000 affiliates as of June 30, 2021, up from 4,000 affiliates as of December 31, 2020.
This generated over 22,700 leads as of June 30, 2021, up from 3,600 as of December 31, 2020. Attracted more than 99,000 social media advertisement views in 2020 and were able to match O2O leads.
Source: FWD Global reports & websites
Tech trends
“
Generative AI
The Impact on Global Insurance market
Insurtechs are harnessing the power of generative AI (gen AI)
“
ITC DIA Europe 2023
They talking about it everywhere
“
Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize how insurers interact with customers by utilising its capacity to comprehend context, produce natural language responses, ask clarifying questions, handle multiple tasks and learn from feedback. This will enable insurers to provide seamless and individualised experiences for changing customer and industry requirements.
“
Speaking to Asia Insurance Review, Microsoft Singapore senior solution specialist (cloud) Yassine Serhane
“Generative AI adoption is no longer an optional consideration but a necessary requirement for insurers to remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape. “
Exploring the need, urgency, and roadmap for adopting Generative AI across claims operations – Everest Group Report (sponsored by EY)
Companies are getting ready to the adoption
According to the report by MarketResearch.biz, the global market size for generative AI in the insurance sector is set for remarkable expansion, with projections showing growth from USD 346.3 million in 2022 to a substantial USD 5,543.1 million by 2032. This substantial increase reflects a robust growth rate of 32.9% from 2023 to 2032.
Also, North America dominated the generative AI in the insurance market, contributing the highest revenue share. Europe, particularly nations like the UK, Germany, France, and Switzerland, stands as another significant region, showcasing notable implementation of AI technologies in insurance.
What is it and how it’s different from traditional AI?
Generative AI focuses on creating new content and data, while Traditional AI (rule-based) solves specific tasks with predefined rules. Generative AI uses unsupervised learning and generative models, while Traditional AI often employs supervised learning and discriminative models.
Generative AI excels in scenarios requiring creativity, data augmentation, and handling uncertainty. It is valuable in generating art, music, and personalized content, as well as filling in missing data and simulating scenarios where real data is limited.
This technology utilizes existing data to discern patterns and generate original outputs, encompassing text, imagery, audio, and synthetic data. Gen AI models demonstrate the ability to generate remarkably realistic and personalized content, mirroring human creativity. When trained on industry-specific and company-specific data, these models can deliver human-like responses, performing tasks such as content summarization, search, intent identification, personalized message creation, synthetic data generation, and process automation. Gen AI solutions have the potential to empower various personas within the insurance ecosystem.
Insurance use cases around the world
UNDERWRITING & RISK MANAGEMENT
Health & Wellness
What?
What?
A property intelligence for risk
A property intelligence for risk
Overview
Overview
- Select the right risk
- Reduce expenses
- Improve customer experience
- Select the right risk
- Reduce expenses
- Improve customer experience
Source
Source
Sales & Advice
Commercial Platforms
What?
What?
Transforming human interaction using AI
AI to quote and bind risks
Overview
Overview
- Matches customers with agents
- Drives better conversations
- Improves conversion opportunities
- AI extracts data from submissions
- AI checks clauses and wordings
- Acts as a broking exchange
Source
Source
Bold Penguin
ASIA - Ping An Insurance
Ping An Good Doctor has incorporated ChatGPT-like AI features into its medical systems, underlining the growing influence of generative AI in healthcare. Covering 2,000 diseases, the AI efficiently manages patient inquiries by simulating questions and facilitating doctor-patient communication. In 2022, the company reported a total revenue of about 6.16 billion yuan, illustrating the positive impact of generative AI on healthcare services, improving efficiency, and contributing to financial success.
Value-added service
FWD
Mind Strength Program
About:
FWD Mind Strength Support provides accessible and secure preventive mental health care services through a user-friendly web-based platform, offering diverse media formats like the FWD Mind Master Class video series and a mental strength assessment. Users, including non-FWD customers, can access the mental health support function for free for one month, with personalized advice and guidance available.
The programs have been available in almost all FWD business’s countries:
Hong Kong, Thailand, Phillipines, Malaysia, Vietnam (Sep 2023)
According to practice, FWD launches the free program first to mass users, including non-FWD customers to raise awareness of the need to take care of mental health, then will launch/ promote the dedicated protection plan/ rider named after the Mind Strength program.
Mental healthcare partners:
An innovative mental health-focused protection, that provides first-of-its-kind coverage including preliminary assessment and referral services, out-patient Psychiatrist/Clinical Psychologist unselling consultation, hospitalization expense for psychiatric treatment and post-hospitalisation care, and tailor-made family support.
that won Top 3 Most Innovative Product/Service Award – Hong Kong Insurance Awards 2023
User Journey
applied in Vietnam market
#StrengthenYourMind
- User can reach the programme info on the FWD website/their marketing campaign. Chooses “Get my MindStrength score”
2. User can sign up for a free one-month trial on ThoughtFull - a mental coaching service.
3. Answers 21 questions, created and developed by Koa Health.
4. Get your score and recommendations to take the best care for your mental health.
Source: FWD Global reports & websites
Roadmap
IZIon24 platform combined roadmap
IZIon24 customer app
IZIon24 agent app
Agents Get Agents
(referral program)
Q4 / 2023
Embedded insurance
Ladder scheme
Onboard new partners
Q2 / 2024
Gamification
Loyalty program
- Members get members
Withdraw bonus to bank account
Q4 / 2024
Product buffet
Stacked insurance
Product buffet on Agent app
Q2 / 2025
Insurance As A Service
Onboard new products apart from insurance
Q4/ 2025
Q1 / 2024
Q3 / 2024
Q1 / 2025
Q3 / 2025
Loyalty program
- Members get members
Knowledge hub
Sale contest configuration
Need analysis
Payment on agent app
Health scoring
Telemedicine
- Virtual assistant
Commission sharing
Telematics
- Pay as you drive
- Parametric
- AI property inspector
Onboard new products apart from insurance
- Matches customers with agents
- Drives better conversations
- Improves conversion opportunities
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