Since launching in Vietnam in March 2021, regional insurtech company Igloo has facilitated over three million policies within the country, with its market growth being propelled by a number of strategic local partnerships across verticals, alongside a growing consumer appetite for non-life insurance.
Since establishing itself within the Vietnamese market just under a year ago, Igloo has managed to complete over 3 million policies, and it has achieved this by expanding its network to include more local partners. These include the telecommunications firm Mobifone, the one-hour-delivery e-commerce platform Loship, the on-demand delivery platform AhaMove.
Even more recently, Igloo has partnered with the high-tech financial services company LOTTE Finance as of January 2022., securing the company’s first collaboration with the local personal finance sector.
It brings Loan Protection Insurance, including interest payment on late payment debts, hospitalisation allowance and other critical illness and diseases coverage, to consumers on LOTTE Finance’s platform. Igloo has reported that it has plans to secure multiple partnerships across more verticals by Q1 2022.
Leading the Vietnam team is Ray Nguyen (Tri Nguyen), Country Manager, Vietnam for Igloo who has 10 years of experience in managing high-performing teams across various industries such as e-commerce, banking and financial services.
“With the mission to deliver affordable and accessible insurance coverage for Vietnamese consumers, Igloo is expanding its partnerships to different sectors by working with companies of all sizes, from start-ups to big corporations, in telecommunications, delivery, logistics, consumer finance, medical, and e-wallet,” comments Nguyen. “We continue to strengthen our business model based on two key pillars: securing more strategic partnerships and strengthening our agency channel solution.”
Apps that streamline the process
Given Vietnam’s strong insurance demand and a digital-savvy market composed of 53 million digital consumers, Igloo has launched an AI-powered platform, Ignite by Igloo, to enhance sellers’ productivity through a smoother and more efficient sales process.
Ignite offers an accessible online solution that brings together multiple insurance products on a single platform and supports agents in driving improved customer engagement and managing products to better address customer needs. Direct sales intermediaries across sectors who want to offer protection solutions to their customers will also benefit from the platform.
Users on the platform are able to access customer data within the app to avoid missing out on claims requests and status, policy renewal timings, important dates, as well as customer requests and issues. Moreover, the platform helps automate manual work such as reporting, bolstering productivity through effective data management, analysis tools and other digital support features.
“In Vietnam, human connection still plays an important role in the insurance journey,” explains Nguyen. “We are happy to introduce Ignite as a digital solution to help insurance agents and direct sales intermediaries manage interactions with customers at scale, and to ease the sales journey. Ignite users can sell insurance anytime, anywhere, while providing more convenience to customers, who can now access a wide assortment of products in a one-stop intuitive platform. Through Ignite, Igloo is serving as a possibility maker for people to chart a new career in insurance sales, while helping spur innovation in Vietnam’s digital insurance ecosystem through its AI technology.”
Vietnam’s the place for Igloo
Igloo plans to reinforce its presence in Vietnam, whose non-life insurance market is estimated to have reached VND 29,565billion (~$1.3billion) in June 2021, up 9.21 per cent year-on-year according to the Insurance Association of Vietnam.
As of December 2020, the ‘Annual Report of Vietnam Insurance Market 2020’ by Ministry of Finance recorded 1,066,835 insurance agents in Vietnam, including 171,397 non-life insurance agents.
To date, the Igloo team in Vietnam has expanded to 20 across business development, partnerships, marketing and operations since its launch.
“In 2022, Igloo will continue to expand full force across Southeast Asia. We are seeing more customers who are purchasing lifestyle insurance on the back of end-consumer demand for affordable, accessible insurance solutions. We are heartened by our Vietnam successes just nine months in and with plans laid out for the year, this makes for an exciting 2022,” said Raunak Mehta, Igloo’s Chief Commercial Officer.
The company’s insurance solutions have already benefited nearly 15 million users in Southeast Asia, with its business potential situated within Southeast Asia’s growing digital economy, which is expected to hit $300 billion in 2025. The increasing digital insurance penetration opens up new opportunities for digital players and insurance companies which are worth over $10 billion in the region.
