Navigating Insurtech - how digital will transform insurance in APAC

Like many sectors of the economy, the insurance industry is affected by increasing technological innovation and disruption in the digital era. Technology in insurance, or Insurtech, is experiencing rapid growth, increasing investment and enabling technology to greater influence, and in some cases transform, the insurance industry. Now moving the shift a bit to APAC, this region is particularly experiencing massive technological advancement in the insurance industry. The extremely high expectations of consumers in the region for seamless and personalized digital experiences inspire a great deal of innovation. Firms in mainland China and other markets are experimenting widely and delivering impressive results with new products, new distribution models, and new technology. The top performers are both capitalizing on near-term opportunities and establishing a strong foundation for long-term success. The performance is primarily driven by China and some positive performance in South Korea. However, some mature market in the region such as Japan is struggling due to their rising population age and consumer expectation shift. The penetration rate in China increased from 1.4% in 2013 to 1.9% in 2018. Non-life insurance is showing rapid growth compared to life insurance in the Asia-Pacific region. The Gross Written Premium (GWP) for life insurance increased by CAGR 4% whereas, the non-life insurance for the Asia-pacific region increased by 7.5% for the same period. With this, we moved on to discuss the following: 1. Views on opportunities of Insurtech in the insurance industry. 2. Insurtech is a steadily growing sector within the larger tech, start-up and fintech spheres when Covid-19 made landfall, catalysed cross-industrial digitisation and accelerated the boom. This growth has been marked by the rise of many insurtech giants with some crossing a valuations above $1 billions. Basis this, the speaker gave his views on the evolving insurance ecosystem. 3. Insurtech industry is thriving through ground-breaking innovations that is increasingly focusing to solve some real problems from motor insurance to climate change to sustainability issues. Now looking at leaders like Allianz partners, the company has been working many such initiatives one of which is the partnership with Irish Insurtech BlinK and the introduction of the Automotive Innovation Centre that focuses on future mobility including telematics and engineering. With this, the speaker shared some of key initiatives of Allianz Partners in the Insurtech Space. 4. Asia-Pacific is one of the diverse markets for insurers. It is a newly emerging and attractive market for insurance products as it is home to nearly one-third of the world population, few of the fastest-growing economies in the world such as China and India which is expecting to be the world's largest economy by 2030, and multiple countries with rapidly expanding middle-class population. Considering this, the session touched upon Allianz Partners unique positioning of insurance with respect to service, technology & practices specially in APAC. Speaker Bio: Vinay Surana - is the Asia Pacific - Chief Executive Officer at Allianz Partners. Vinay is based in Sydney, Australia and he leads the Asia Pacific business with responsibility for Australasia, China, Japan, India and South East Asia. Vinay brings over 20 years of global experience in the financial services industry to his current role. Prior to joining Allianz, Vinay held the position of Senior Vice President, Head of Individual Personal Insurance for Asia Pacific within AIG, where he spent more than 13 years in various senior executive positions across numerous markets within Asia, the United States and Australasia. His expertise ranges from insurance and underwriting, strategic planning, reinsurance, risk management, partnership development and digital enablement as well as Insurtech to name a few.