NTUC Income (Income), a leading insurer in Singapore, has joined forces with ZA Tech Global, the overseas technology export arm of China's first online insurer, ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance, to bring speed to digital innovation and product launches in Singapore.
As part of the collaboration, Income will harness ZhongAn’s deep technological knowhow, experience and knowledge in collaborating with ecosystem partners to deliver a pipeline of innovative digital insurance products tailored for modern lifestyle needs.
The “Digital Insurance Core System”, ZhongAn’s key technology asset, will help Income improve its agility and cost efficiency to introduce more bespoke and modular products to customers. Empowered by ZhongAn, Income’s capabilities will get a boost to readily and seamlessly integrate with digital ecosystem partners.
First product under strategic partnership
To start, the strategic partnership will be introducing a lifestyle insurance product tailored for the tourism sector in Singapore by the second quarter of 2019. The product aims to protect both residents and tourists in Singapore against contingent events when they visit specific tourist attractions.
The new product will leverage ZhongAn’s cloud-based InsurTech solution, which will enable Income to process millions of insurance policies every day and create new offerings with greater efficiency and cost saving, in view of strong tourist traffic to Singapore.
Test bed
For ZhongAn, it aims to leverage Income’s position as a top composite insurer in Singapore to test and scale digital innovation in Singapore and regionally, and expedite the digitalisation of insurance industry in Southeast Asia.
Mr Peter Tay, Income’s COO, who also heads the company’s Digital Transformation Office (DTO), said, “We can now test-bed digital innovation via ZhongAn’s technology platform without causing potential operational burden to the business and this allows us to pivot away from products that get less traction with customers and scale those that resonate better with speed.”
“Given that our impetus for innovation and digitalisation has always been customer-centricity, we are excited to tap ZhongAn’s insurTech to unlock new possibilities in which insurance can be designed and offered to address customer pain points. We believe that this partnership will enable Income to reach a segment of customers, who are typically less receptive to traditional insurance offerings and distribution channels. Recognising that digital disruptions have cultivated new consumer behaviour, we aim to be future-ready to meet the digital lifestyle needs of tomorrow by disrupting insurance today,” Mr Tay added.
Mr Bill Song, CEO of ZA Tech, said, “We have established a clear roadmap to boost our technology solutions business in overseas markets, while the partnership with Income marks another profound step to extend our business globally.”