The Asia InsurTech Podcast caught up with Nadia Suttikulpanich, the head of Fuchsia Innovation-Center for Muang Thai Life Insurance. Nadia has been on the show first in 2019 and a lot has changed since then, especially consumer behavior using digital services. Muang Thai was one of the first insurers to offer telemedicine pre-Covid and the past year has proven the importance of digital solutions in a combination with traditional healthcare.
Find the transcript of our conversation below:
Michael Waitze
Hi, this is Michael Waitze and welcome back to the Asia InsurTech Podcast. This is the only podcast in Asia focused on insurance that gives entrepreneurs, thought leaders and investors a platform to discuss how technology is reshaping the insurance industry in Asia. Today should be a really good one. Today, I’m joined by Nadia Suttikulpanich, the head of Fuschia Innovation-Center for Muang Thai Life Insurance. Nadia, it’s really great to have you back on the show. And I believe that you probably don’t remember this, but it was in July 2019, by the way, I know I went back and I checked, and you know what it was? It was Episode 14. Do you know how many episodes we’ve done since then? 114 more. Can you believe it? And if you remember the last time we came, and we recorded in your office?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yes, we were sitting right opposite each other. We were so close.
Michael Waitze
Do you remember that’s when you and I figured out, wait a second. I know that guy.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
I met him at La Tana.
Michael Waitze
Remember, we didn’t realize like, I knew your name sounded familiar. But we didn’t realize until we were sitting there. And Theresa, remember was looking at us, like, are you two, okay? But the other interesting thing was all we had was one microphone. Do you remember that? and we were passing it back and forth. And I just think like, it was much more innocent times in so many different ways. Like now, I have this really fancy microphone. The sound is amazing. And recording using some super cool tools. And back then it was just like, here’s a crappy microphone, please speak into this please? And it made the editing actually really funny because I was like, that pauses between the time that I had the mic. And Theresa had the mic, and then you had it. I had to edit that out. How are you doing? By the way?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
I’m hanging in there. How are you?
Michael Waitze
Yeah, I mean, I’m hanging in there, too. I mean, I told you before we started recording that I just got vaccinated. And you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, I didn’t take it that seriously, because I think like everybody else. We actually did an episode of the Asia InsurTech Podcast in April of 2020. And the idea was when this is over in like two months, what’s going to happen? I’m serious, though, like, that’s what we thought. So I was gonna ask you sarcastically, like, what’s new kind of thing?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
So many things actually. I think for us Thais we’re just to be honest, I just, I’m just feeling like, hard for the past few months. Because the first wave, you know, I think maybe you felt the same. It was it was distance, you know? We could still travel inside Thailand. And you know, there are some adjustments, right? We are more careful. But life still goes on. We were eating in restaurants. Not much has changed, really, apart from like, international travels. But now it’s like, so different, right? I think we’re just feeling that impact, much more. Yeah, so so. But it really did change a lot of behaviors of the consumer. In hindsight, we were kind of lucky that we got eased in during the first wave, not so much of like, a big shock. And I think Thai people need that. Like to be honest. Otherwise, it’s just yeah. And now we are kind of a little bit more resilient, although we feel more like heavily. But you know, like the topic that we talked about in 2019 has been accelerated, I think, like 10 folds. All of our consumers, like my mom included, has been become much more savvy, in adopting all of these tools, things that we were building at that time, or gradually easing into the usage of like consumers live. got adopted, like so quickly. And our two years target got hit in, like, less than four months.
Michael Waitze
A lot of the people that we speak to on the show has said to us the same thing that they’ve said the same thing, and that is that the digital transformation that they discussed was accelerated so quickly, that in some cases, they couldn’t even keep track of it. I mean, and you’re right at the beginning. The first wave in Thailand for us I sort of felt like the rest of the world like poopoo on you because I’m still going out to restaurants. I’m still seeing my friends. We’re wearing masks, you know, when we’re indoors for sure. But we don’t have case counts like you do. And I think that’s made this time a little bit harder definitely has on me. I moved purposefully so I could be closer to where I work. So I don’t have to take a taxi and don’t have to take the BTS. Right, I just have an elevator downstairs from the Wisdom buildings that are behind TDPK. And for me, it’s relatively safe. I have an enclosed office here, right? So I walk into my office. But even the elevator in my building, I don’t want to get on with other people. That’s not the normal Michael. Michael is very social. Michael’s like everybody on I hold the door for everybody. But now it’s just like, if somebody gets on I get off. Right? I’m not the right thing to do. But yeah, you know, the feeling. Are you still going to the office every day?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
I feel that right now it’s, it’s so fast that you wouldn’t know where you get it from? So so being overly cautious. Sorry, sometimes it might seem rude, but like personally, I don’t feel that we should be apologizing for that is, you know, safety first and once you contracted, right, then you are also a spreader. So to stop, what is, you know, not necessarily is the right thing to do.
Michael Waitze
Yeah, and it’s weird because it goes against. I’ve now known you for a while. And politeness is something that both of us have been taught, you know, by our parents, and it goes against the grain, to not be polite in situations. But you’re right. It’s now safety first. And it does feel very rude to me, when somebody wants to get on the elevator to get off. But at the end of the day, I’m trying to protect them as well. It’s not just about me, right? And I think that that’s one of the reasons why, like I feel safe coming here because TDPK restricts the number of people that can come in, and I don’t see anybody all day anyway. So for me, it’s, I have to get out of the apartment, because I think that there’s and I’m curious what you think about this. I think there’s a mental health element here that people are not discussing enough, at least not in public. And I need to leave my condo because I need to feel like there’s a world out there. Is that fair?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
It is fair. It is fair. I’m starting feeling I’m like vitamin D deficient. Just because I stay indoors so much.
Michael Waitze
You’re not getting enough sun. I tan really easily and really well. And I think this is the whitest I have been in my life. I’m not kidding and I don’t think that’s good for me.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
It’s not. Coming back to your question am I going to the office? We alternate? You know, there’s teamA, team B, team C now in the office. But since the lockdown, no, so I haven’t been in three weeks now. Yeah, but before that, yes, we alternated to go in. And sometimes to have you know that human interaction is so important. I mean, you know, having a conversation like this is great. But of course, I still miss 2019.
Michael Waitze
Yes, so di I. In a gigantic way, again, if your social at any level. And this is what this fits into one of my theories, actually. And I’m curious what you think we talk a lot about digital transformation, right. And we talked about artificial intelligence and machine learning and voice recognition and all of these things and telehealth. And at the end of the day, and I believe in all of it, I really do. Because I think it’s super useful in tons of situations, we also think about automating the sales process. And I’ve said this for years. And now I think it’s becoming more obvious to people that didn’t think this way. That technology is just an enabler and a hybrid solution that people want to interact with other people, whether it’s buying a pizza, which was always my stock example. Or frankly, buying insurance, I don’t want to eliminate the agent, I want the agent to be brilliant, and I want the technology to make them brilliant. Does that make sense? You know what I mean?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
That makes a lot of sense. We’ve been talking about like augmented bridging between human and machine, right? I think in this case is always about machine making human better. It’s not about replacement, right? And for your agents to have a tool so that they can explain or illustrates better to you. I think that’s the way to go. And right now, for example, when agents cannot see the customer, right, it doesn’t mean that you can’t see customer or you can’t service customer. You can use like what we’re using now to connect right Allow customer to purchase to understandto talk to each other and then sign. So you don’t have to likefax or courier, like the paper to their house.
Michael Waitze
I don’t even think my daughter knows what a fax is.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Oh yeah, somebody asked me the other day like, Oh, can you fax something I don’t know who asked me that question. Fax? Where do you find a fax machine?
Michael Waitze
Is that still a thing?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah. It’s like you need to hold like a credit card company or something, fax it over? Yeah. Sorry, where do you find a fax machine nowadays? Please tell me.
Michael Waitze
I’m more likely to get into my horse and buggy and drive it over. to fax it over for sure. Right?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Exactly, exactly, at least horses are available.
Michael Waitze
If we’ve established this idea of hybrid, right, and we I learned this actually, when I was a sales trader at Goldman Sachs. You know, we did algorithmic trading 20 years ago. And that meant that we gave buyside traders tools, they could trade on their own. But the moment something went wrong with that algo, we would get the phone call, but we’d also have to understand every aspect of it. And yeah, that look on your face said yes, we were definitely getting yelled at by the client.
But that’s why I’ve always had this thought like, what if a robot delivers me a pizza, and it’s the wrong pizza? I want to have a relationship with that person. So that, you know, even if it’s wrong, if they’re nice and whatever, like if I wanted pepperoni, but it’s for cheese, I don’t really care, I just want it to eat kind of thing. But I want that back and forth, that that person can then go give feedback, and we can have a relationship. And they know the next time they come just like an agent, if the agent is super charged, because of all the data and info that they have. I’m never going to want to deal with another agent, the same way that I want to give the pizza guy a tip kind of thing.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
And and I think what’s wonderful about digital and all these, you know, pools of data is, once you do it, right, right, nothing is lost. You can always go back and trace. So we don’t promise that there won’t be any error. Of course, there’ll be error, this is life, but at least you’re just a phone call away, right? And to find out what is wrong, and then, you know, you can fix it. Otherwise, when you leave it only to human right. People change, you know, employees are not does not stay with the company forever. Sometimes, and I know like it’s been improved so much. But in the good old days only, you know, a telephone call service is available. And you have to tell the same story over and over again. Like to a different person, even to the same person, you’re like, do you remember we talked three days ago, this is the situation. So, so bridging that is a brilliant thing. But I think what company needs to remember is to make sure that, you know, that feel of a phone call away still needs to be there. Right? You can do everything online, you can do everything on, you know, digital tools. But once a customer needs you, you also need to prepare and and have that available. While some company does it brilliantly. Some companies maybe have gone too far, but then come back because it realized, right? Yeah, I remember like during the first kind of digital era, you can’t find a phone number anywhere. And it’s just like, Who do I speak to? You know, yeah.
Michael Waitze
One of my friends just after that pandemic hit, it must have been in April or in May had booked a flight somewhere internally in Thailand using, you know, one of the low cost carriers. The flight got canceled through no fault of their own because of COVID. So they went online to find a phone number and they found a phone number. Actually, they tried the automated bot first and it was just like silliness. You know? What’s your name? Michael. I don’t understand kind of thing. I was just like, okay, you can’t even get this right. But they found a phone number online and underneath the phone number and said, Please don’t call his phone number. Nobody will pick up the line. Like no one’s answering the phone. And you’re just like, Ah, right. Nobody cares. I’m having to self serve like I was self served gasoline when it first came out. I don’t care. But if there’s a problem with the pump, I need to talk to somebody I want gas. Sorry, I almost pulled my hair out. That would have been bad. But has it changed the way your team as an innovation center has looked at investing and building things besides the stuff that you already worked on that maybe were accelerated, has everyone kind of stepped back and said, Wait a second, let’s reevaluate and look at the gaps and stuff like that, particularly as it relates to, I don’t know, telehealth, telemedicine and stuff like that, or even other things that I haven’t considered.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
I think the the pandemic has shown because we were, like, probably one of the first company that connected to that connected insurance, OPD benefits to a telehealth service in Thailand. Right. And, and what we kind of like discuss very early on was, like, to be honest, I was playing the role of a non believer. So we were pushing hard to make sure that at least we need to be at par to the offline service that the Thai people are getting. So imagine this, like, what, especially employees group, we have super spoiled, right? We have this card from our company. And it’s like a few perks that is really useful. Thank you, company. So basically, if you feel sick, you can go and take this card with you to the hospital, private hospitals, it’s nice, you know, aircon and everything. And, it’s a one stop shop. Right? So you go that you get to see a specialist, you get your medication, you don’t even have to pay and then you go back because everything is cashless. Right. So the first day that we connected to a telemedicine service, we say that at least we need to be at par, meaning that that one stop service has to exist online. Because during the first generation, I don’t know if you remember, it was only a consultation. And medication is a separate journey. And sometimes, you know, insurance, in your insurance benefit does not get hooked on to that telemed service. So it’s cash or credit card payments, and then you do a reimbursement. Who in the world, you know, a spoiled people like us? Like, I don’t think that, you know, it will serve us very well. So for us, we wanted to make sure that, you know, those kind of connections happen. And so we did it, I think into we launched in 2019. If I told you that, yeah, yeah. And then we saw like the spiked in 2020 during, you know, the the first round of pandemic, right, I just tracked the number again, this morning, just half a year, it already topped the whole 2020 numbers already. Yeah. And I think that’s something that we are seeing a lot more people who experienced it like it. Initially, it was just more of a necessity, because, you know, you can’t go to the hospital. But I think gradually, people will continue to kind of like, you know, lean towards this type of service as an alternative service to the normal walk in healthcare.
Michael Waitze
Yeah, I think so too. I mean, if you can not leave your house and still get the same level of healthcare, particularly if it’s a consultation, then medicines attached to it. And like you said, if your credit card or some payment system is attached to it, or if you don’t have to pay anything, because your card, that card, the we’re talking about is registered with them. They know it and it just goes through and you’re like, thank you very much for your service. They’re like, thank you for your time today. And you’re done. That’s an awesome experience, right?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
So we’re just hoping, you know, to connect more, we’re talking to a few more partners. I think one of the one of the key things, and I do really respect, you know, the healthcare providers, the hospital, the doctors, I think they’re working so hard, especially in this time, right. But I think there needs to be a real conversation between not just like not just startups, but also like the normal hospitals who have like the capability, right? How do we how do we accelerate those kind of stuff? Because I remember during like, the first wave and the second wave, I think a lot of people were in shock. And it shows that you can’t wait for the pandemic to happen in order to change, right? Because when it already happened is too late. So I think a lot of hospital wanted to have, you know, telemedicine service, but the technicality and you know, all the groundwork that needs to be established were just maybe not like is ready. So, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen in the background. And I think this is a great lesson for all companies, not just hospitals, not just insurance, like, all companies, right? All types of services, to maybe think more about, you know, what is that alternative service? In order to kind of like, you know, serve and stay connected with the customer?
Michael Waitze
Yeah. Do you see gaps? So from the seat where you set right, do you see gaps that you wish people would fill that haven’t been filled yet? Do you know what I mean? I’ll give you an example. So like, I do a whole show on e commerce that I call e-commerce undercover. And every week we talk about gaps that I see that I just wish somebody would fill, like, please fix this, please fix that. Make it easy to do this. Do you see the same things yourself? And do you look for companies that are trying to do those things? If that makes sense?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I think for us, I position myself as a consumer, right? Yeah, yeah. When you do talk about e-commerce or even like food delivery, you using so many platforms now? So it’s not like you’re actively comparing, but then you you kind of realize when you get the bill at the end of the month to say that, holy crap, we’ve been like, using this platform so much. And then that, then you come back to see like, why is it? You know, like, there’s so many like, different ease of use, or navigation, or, you know, like the simple UI that really kind of like, nudge you towards, you know, the usage of one platform over the other. Right?
Michael Waitze
Yeah, I was gonna say, this is a really good point. And I asked us to people all the time, I’m curious. And I didn’t even know enough to ask you this back in 2019. But you do you think today, and I think this is kind of what you’re saying? I hope it is. But that now, if you’re an insurance company, or an InsurTech, and you’re providing a customer experience, or a user experience, you’re no longer getting compared just to other insurance companies, you’re getting compared to like, how come I can just one click something from Amazon, and it shows up at my door tomorrow, kind of thing. Are you feeling that as well as out kind of what you’re saying?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah, yeah, I am. Yeah. And it’s true. And, and like, all of these things, right? Because we are, well, I am both the consumer and both that, like you’re the developing side. So you kind of like, try to marry the two worlds together. Because like, that is so important because once I think to be honest, all developers or all decision makers should be consumer first. Otherwise, you will never ever understand. And then you will always put the operators problem forefront. And then sometimes the operators problem, like, excuse me, as a consumer, I don’t give a crap.
Michael Waitze
I don’t care.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
I don’t care. And no matter how much you explain to them. They just don’t care. And it’s not their fault, because it’s not their problem.
Michael Waitze
This falls into my category of I wish I had been in that meeting. And what do I mean by that? I want to be in the meeting, someone decides to create a user experience that solves a problem for the suppliers and not for the consumers. Do you understand what I mean? In other words, like, I want to be in that meeting where they were like, I don’t care how hard it is to use. This helps us on the back end kind of thing. Like who decided that was okay.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it happens a lot. Which, you know, this is something that we have to really change.
Michael Waitze
Yeah. That’s super interesting. Are you still investing in companies now? Is it harder to do it now that it’s all like remote? Do you know what I mean?
Nadia Suttikulpanich
It’s a bit hard, especially overseas company, because you can’t do like an on site DD. And you can’t really kind of like travel to understand the market. So it’s more of, you know, on paper, and sometimes we also do like video, you know, they kind of like, take the video for us and show us you know, what’s going on? But yeah, but what we haven’t stopped. And I think, you know, this is an interesting time and space to kind of like really look at you know, which company is resilience, right? And what, what, what is really needed, right? We invested in one in Vietnam, actually, but this was pre pandemic. It’s an O2O healthcare company. As I said, right, I was, I was positioning myself as a non believer in telemeds. And I think telemeds alone does not answer all the pain points or the person’s need in health care, right. So what this company does is a 360 connectivity between physical, digital, pharmaceutical, as well as hospital. They don’t own a hospital, but what they have established. So hear this out, so basically, they have a service that actually sents care to your home and a telemedicine is a follow up, and it’s free. And also they establish the online pharmacy and a smart clinic. So if you’re in a subscription basis, right, you can go to any of the smart clinics, can access all the online pharmaceutical. And they also have a different model of pharmacy partners that they establish. So I think is a really nice circle, right. And one of the things that they were doing before the pandemic was to launch something that is truly a pain point for for people in Vietnam, which is Vietnam is slightly different from Thailand, Thailand, you see governmental hospitals, or the public hospitals, which are big University Hospitals. And then you have like a super high end, well crafted private, right. And then you also have, like, more mass private hospitals. But in Vietnam, the concentration is more dense. Like the so called private is really, really, like, expensive. Yeah, right, really private. Well, the public hospital may be similar to Thailand, which is like very busy. So a case like, let’s say, a prenatal or pregnant woman who wants to, you know, visit a doctor. If she goes into the public sector hospital, she will not get to follow up with the same doctors throughout her whole pregnancy. So she will see like, you know, one doctor during like, you know, her first trimester, another doctor and second trimester, whatnot, right. And then the price point is like, so different, that there’s a huge gap in between in the middle. So what this company does is really helpful fill that gap. And a case like the prenatal care is, you know, they will come with a gynecologist or doctor, and also a technician with ultrasound and everything to your house. Yeah. So the whole nine months of the pregnancy, you are follow up with the same doctor, all your records is in, you know, the, the digital health records that you carry. And then you also get transition into the hospital system when you have to do your delivery. Right. So I think this is like a nice kind of, yeah, as I was saying before, nice circle for care. They even do ophthalmologists, I think they have more than 14 sub specialties that that gets delivered to home.
Michael Waitze
How do they get to and from the home? In other words, do they take a motor scooter? Do they take a car like how do they do that? So and how do they ensure that they’re, that they’re sanitized? In other words, if you ride on a motor scooter, right, when you arrive, you have to wash your hands and do all that stuff. Right? So they have Yeah, like first aid kit or something like that. And then they sanitize themselves before they give the medical care. Yeah.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah, yeah. But right now because of the lockdown. So the the service is shifted much more towards. tele. Vietnam, I think is much more serious lockdown than us.
Michael Waitze
So I didn’t realize you were investing in things that were health insurance adjacent as well, and that you were investing in other countries. That’s awesome. And very exciting. Because it now It means you can have an impact. It’s not just local, but regional, which is really cool.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
And I think there’s one thing that we believe in is we believe in repeatable models, of course, it’s not necessarily has to be like, exactly the same, right. But once that baseline or the fundamental is establish, it’s really easy to kind of like export. Yeah,
Michael Waitze
Yeah, I mean, look there idiosyncrasies in every country in every market. And it’s more than just the language, right? There’s a cultural aspect to particular for medical care everywhere, right? Yeah, it’s so personal, and how do those interpersonal relationships take place? But as long as the big ideas the same how to provide this service at home? We’ll figure that part out. Once you figure that out, localizing it’s hard, but it is repeatable.
Nadia Suttikulpanich
Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t have to look exactly the same, right? We’re not expecting a carbon copy of each other. Yeah. And I think healthcare is, to me, I think it’s such a complex, but yet, there’s no one model, you know, even within Bangkok, or, or up country, I think the way people behave is slightly different.
Michael Waitze
Providing medical care to somebody in Bangkok and to somebody in like a suburb it’s gonna be very different. Yeah, for a ton of different reasons, I think. Yes. Okay, look, let’s do this. I’m gonna let you go. This was awesome. And now you’re gonna have to promise Are you going to come back sooner than two years?
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