AIP News RoundUp – EP 47 – Theresa Blissing and Michael Waitze – That Was Some Pretty Big News

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Michael Waitze worked in Global Finance for more than 20 years, employed by firms like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, primarily in Tokyo.  Michael lived and worked in Tokyo from February 1990 until December 2011.  Michael always maintained a particular focus on how technology could be used to make businesses more efficient and to drive P/L growth. Michael is a leader in the digital media space, building one of the biggest and fastest-growing podcast listener bases in the region.  His AsiaTechPodcast.com show has listeners in more than 170 countries and his company, Michael Waitze Media produces some of Asia’s most popular podcasts.

Theresa is the founder of the Asia InsurTech Podcast and a Thought Leader on innovation in insurance in Asia. She has worked for ten years for leading multinational insurers in Europe and Asia before turning to management consulting and venture building with the goal of transforming the insurance industry and helping shape its future in the region.

Guest
Hugh Terry

Hugh Terry, the founder of The Digital Insurer, is an experienced insurance professional with more than 30 years’ experience in the insurance industry covering insurance companies, business consulting as well as successful set-up and exit from his own businesses. Hugh is an actuary by profession. The Digital Insurer is the world’s largest knowledgebase and online community of more than 40,000 professionals who share a common purpose of working together to accelerate the digital transformation of insurance. The TDI Academy launched in 2020 is dedicated to providing best in class learning and development on digital insurance to help as many people as possible be part of our digital future.

Guest
Simon Phipps

Simon Phipps, Founder of The Digital Insurer, has over 30 years experience across Life, GI and Asset Management businesses within insurers, consulting firms and start-ups. He started his career in intermediated distribution. Previously Aviva MD & KPMG lead partner for Insurance Advisory & Digital Innovation in HK. The Digital Insurer is the world’s largest knowledgebase and online community of more than 40,000 professionals who share a common purpose of working together to accelerate the digital transformation of insurance. The TDI Academy, launched in 2020, is dedicated to providing best in class learning and development on digital insurance to help as many people as possible be part of our digital future.

October ends with some major partnership news! Check out our new episode for more details and to find out which two new guests decided to drop by the AIP News Roundup where we discuss how AIP is getting even better and why blockchain is not dead!

This month we saw more partnerships and more investment in InsurTech. In Malaysia, PolicyStreet.com raised RM25 MM in Series A funding and has secured in-principle approval for a combined reinsurance and general insurance license from the Labuan Financial Services Authority. After Igloo, PolicyStreet is the second InsurTech to acquire a license from Labuan and the first insurance aggregator to do so. And in Singapore, Surer has raised US$1 million in seed funding. This InsurTech started in September 2020 and has created a digital ecosystem where insurance intermediaries and insurers can leverage technology to supercharge workflows, processes, recruitment, and distribution of products.

While we are seeing funding round after funding round within InsurTech markets, incumbents seem to struggle. Pacific Century Group’s InsurTech, bolttech, has extended its Series A funding round to US$210 million, but the group’s insurer FWD has experienced delays in its planned IPO in the US market. In China, Ping An Insurance, one of the pioneers of digital insurance, well known for its five ecosystem strategy, has witnessed a $90 billion plunge in its market value.

In Thailand, Muang Thai Life (MTL) and ZA Tech have teamed up to offer more digital insurance products. MTL’s Fuchsia Innovation Center has a track record of both working with and investing in InsurTech and HealthTech startups, and this is accelerating the digital transformation of MTL. Another insurance incumbent that has partnered with ZA Tech, and that has a newly developed appetite for investing in startups and ecosystems, is AIA. Tech providers like ZA Tech might be the third leg of the stool enabling partnerships with ecosystems like AIA’s partnership with Vietnamese e-commerce giant Tiki. AIA has not only closed an exclusive partnership with Tiki but also led their latest Series E funding round which raised US$240 million.

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