In several countries of the old continent, including France, with the coronavirus, more and more consumers are using new technologies to interact with their insurance policies. Many insurance companies offer BtoBtoC services by collaborating with insurance companies. This is particularly the case with companies such as Testamento, Akur8, Monk and Particeep.
However, there are some countries where the adoption of innovative solutions is stronger than in France. This is particularly the case with China. Thus, we decided to study various digital insurance solutions already present in the “middle empire” which are, for the moment, the order of dreams in France.
Zhong An Insurance
Zhong An is an insurance created in 2013. This insurance was founded by three Chinese entrepreneurs:
• Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba (Alibaba, AliExpress, AliPay, etc.);
• Pony Ma, founder of Tencent (WeChat, etc.);
• Mingzhe Ma, founder of Ping An (an assurance that we will mention again in the article).
Zhong An Insurance, upon launch, has been available only online providing the following products: consumption, loan, health, auto and travel.
In 2018, in an interview collected by Digital Insurance Agenda, Bill Song stated that the company has more than 400 million customers in its database and that in 3 years, 10 billion insurance policies have been sold.
In 2016, the company entered into a partnership with the Ethereum blockchain for R&D purposes in artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud computing. Since then, the blockchain has been used to strengthen security as well as for the implementation of “Smart Contracts”. As a reminder, a “smart contract” is a contract stored in a blockchain that will take place automatically if the conditions are met. For example, Zhong An offers insurance in the event of a flight delay. In case of late departure, without even making the request and while the customer is still waiting, the request will be automatically made.
Zhong An understood that new technologies and its derivative services are very important for new generations. 97% of Zhong An customers communicate with company chatbots. According to consulting firm Accenture, 57.8% of its clients are between the ages of 18 and 39, and the company says a significant number of its clients have their first insurance with them.
Taikang
Taikang is not really an insurance tech. Indeed, the company was founded in the 1990s. However, Taikang dedicates an annual budget of $ 250 million to create a cloud-integrated health and insurance ecosystem. This service is offered to approximately 1,000 hospitals, retirement homes located in 14 cities, thousands of dental clinics and other medical centers.
Taikang’s goal is to create a standardized medical data management CRM with a single standardization; thus allowing data to be extracted without additional processing while optimizing costs and especially time.
Ultimately, such a CRM increases user satisfaction and facilitates case management by insurance.
TheCareVoice
Co-founded by a Frenchman, The CareVoice is an insurance company based in Shanghai and went through the famous Ping An Could Accelerator.
With CareVoiceOS, this insurtech offers insurers access to a connected health insurance ecosystem. The operating system offers a turnkey solution that helps insurers to immediately launch their digital engagement capabilities, or serves as an infrastructure solution to support their own customer engagement mechanisms. The solution provided by the company allows insurers to create connected digital journeys that address all stages of the insured’s customer journey. Insurers can also customize routes to meet various identified needs.
Ping an
We previously promised to come back to that company, now is the time.
Ping An offers services to cover the entire financial industry; in 2013 it decided to switch to 100% cloud. The company claimed itself the only major financial institution in the world with this process. In an interview with La Revue du Digital in 2019, Jonathan Larsen Chief Innovation Office of Ping An gives the example of the 100% dematerialized sector of life insurance within the company: recruitment, training, customer management, everything is carried out via tools on the internet.
In its conquest of the cloud and, more generally, of digitalization, Ping An has incubated and created many projects. In this article, we have just mentioned TheCareVoice, in a previous article we presented how Ping An integrates Artificial Intelligence to estimate and reimburse owners of a damaged vehicle before repairs even begin. The company has also launched Good Doctor, a teleconsultation application, similar to the French insurtech Livy, but consultations are available 24/7 and the service allows the purchase and delivery of drugs in just an hour. At the end of June 2020, on its site, the application launched in 2015 claims 67 million active users: that’s as many as the number of the French population!
We cannot list all the Chinese insurance initiatives here. If you want to know the most promising, please, we are introducing you to nr2. Co-founded by a Frenchman, via artificial intelligence their system identifies and classifies startups in China and South Korea.
About Particeep
Particeep is a fintech that provides SaaS solutions for online distribution of banking, insurance and saving products. Particeep helps banks, insurers, asset management companies and their distributors to deploy digital subscription solutions for their products and services connected to their existing information system in less than a month. Among its customers, Particeep has major players in banking, insurance and investment in France, Europe and the United States such as Crédit du Nord, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Crédit Agricole, MetLife, Groupama, RCI Bank and Paref Gestion.
Particeep is a Young Innovative Company, twice labeled by Finance Innovation and winner of a dozen awards such as the Best Open Banking API Europe 2020 award of the Global Banking & Finance Review and the Open Banking awards of Innovation Bank in 2018 and 2017.