Master niche markets before scaling: insurtech CEOs

Insurtech founders should focus on niche markets and serve them well before seeking different opportunities, says a panel of insurtech CEOs on Wednesday (June 4).

Focusing on micro-segments and niche markets will help insurtechs create a deep focus on the consumer pain points they are able to resolve, says Fred Ngan, CEO of Hong Kong-based digital insurer Bowtie.

“Because it’s so niche, you’re able to personalise the service and do it very well,” Ngan says. “Don’t worry that the segment is not picking up because you’ll have that advantage that will give you the momentum, resources and credibility to move to the adjacent segments and up markets.”

Nicolas Faquet, CEO of Thai digital motor insurer Roojai, advises insurtech founders not to feel pressured by venture capital to expand.

“During our series B [funding round], I talked to hundreds of VCs. 90% thought: ‘Oh, you’re a new Thai player, not interesting, we’re looking at Southeast Asia,’” Faquet says.

“I convinced myself that [we needed] to expand to Indonesia, which we did during our Series C,” Faquet adds, “[but then] 90% of the VCs asked — why aren’t you focusing on Thailand? Why did you expand to Indonesia?”

Faquet and Ngan were speaking on a panel of insurtech chiefs during InsureTech Connect Asia in Singapore, along with Axel Baur, CEO of health insurtech Amplify Health, and Raunak Mehta, CEO of embedded insurance firm Igloo.

Driving growth

The four insurtech chiefs discussed building sustainable insurtechs that can scale, proving efficiencies in their vision, and having a clear path to profitability.

An alignment of purpose is important to impact investors, says Mehta, whose firm focuses on addressing underinsurance in the region and offers a blockchain-based parametric Weather Index insurance for coffee farmers.

“We have examples where impact investors have, in a way, given us a lot of leverage with how you go out in certain countries and capture the uninsured and underinsured pools,” Mehta told the audience.

“[Most investors] invest in a company with this dream of having a 5x, 6x sort of exit. [But] at the end of the day, during the course of that journey, are you able to create value that is a lot more meaningful and aligned to both sides?”

Insurtechs can give control back to the insureds by making policies more accessible, says Ngan. “You can use technology to give control back to the consumer,” Ngan says. “[So they can] go online and buy and save 40% in terms of premium and make it accessible.”

Bowtie has a dedicated content video team and has built a powerful digital marketing machine. “What we’ve learnt is that we don’t sell, we educate,” Ngan says. “We spend a lot of time trying to educate the consumer on why they need [protection].”

But content marketing isn’t everything. Firms have to prove efficiency in their vision, said Ngan. “If we are not able to prove the efficiency, there’s no way we can get a second funding,” Ngan says.

Patience and resilience are key, especially in the healthcare space, where change moves slowly, says Baur. As Amplify Health builds a universal data platform to make pricing data comparable between hospitals and across countries, it is seeking to change the paradigms for medical cost inflation, Baur adds.

“We’re putting tools in place that empower [insurers] to change the paradigm when it comes to medical cost inflation, when it comes to negotiating with the providers,” Baur says. “[We’re] creating new products that allow insurers to actually tap into population segments that they haven’t done before.”

Amplify Health has been able to lower claims costs by 2.5% — a small number, but one that scales when gross claims occur in the billions, says Baur. “What I’ve learnt over 30 years in healthcare is that healthcare is a very, very slow climb. If you’re patient and resilient and have the tenacity, you can get this.”