AIP News RoundUp – Episode 36 – Theresa Blissing and Michael Waitze – The Nature of Work Is Changing and the Nature of Insurance Is Changing With It

Listen

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.

Another awesome month for InsurTech in Asia! Congratulations to PasarPolis for raising US$5M from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which focuses on accelerating financial inclusion and literacy in developing countries. It is IFC’s first investment in an Indonesian startup and demonstrates the belief that InsurTechs like PasarPolis can help increase insurance penetration in developing countries. Listen to our episode with PasarPolis founder and CEO Cleosent Randing here.  

In the Philippines, Singaporean InsurTech Igloo is on a similar mission. In a partnership with broker Philpacific Insurance Brokers Inc. (Philinsure) the startup is looking to provide affordable protection to small business owners and develop new products such as Dengue insurance for the Philippine market. Listen to our episodes with Igloo founder Wei Zhu and Igloo’s Thailand head here

In Korea, InsurTech Small Ticket announced a partnership with KB General Insurance and delivery app Yogiyo with the goal to provide Yogiyo Express’ part-time delivery riders with the necessary insurance solutions for commercial activities. SmallTicket was Korea’s first InsurTech. We spoke to the founder Julie Jung-Eun Kim about her journey. Find that episode here.  

In Singapore, former InsurTech poster child CXA announced that it is selling its brokerage unit as it says it is doubling down on its SaaS business. The AIP team has been sceptical about CXA for a while now and we haven’t seen any major breakthroughs from CXA for a while. The startup hardly publishes any business results, profitability goals keep being postponed and the last funding round from May 2020 seems to have been canceled. 


Other companies mentioned in this episode: MSIG, AIS, DocDoc, Singlife, Uncharted, FWD, Onsurity

Related Podcasts

Episode 147
X