By InsuranceAsia News Staff, InsuranceAsia News | October 15, 2018
Insurance players in Asia, both the new generation and traditional firms, should focus on collaboration not disruption to tap into the opportunities presented by insurance technology (insurtech), according to Balaji Prabhakaran, head of propositions and digital products in Asia-Pacific for global giant Allianz.
Presenting at the FT Live Asia Insurance Summit in Hong Kong last week, Prabhakaran said that insurtech is being tipped as the potential future of the insurance industry and could save the Asian insurance sector US$300 billion a year by 2025, according to a recent UBS report.
However, it is still largely in the early stages of development in Asia, making up just 7% of total global insurtech startups.
Adrian Chng, chief executive of Hong Kong-based financial services aggregator GoBear, said the risk for traditional insurers is that if they don’t work with insurtech startups and provide them with the data they need, many of them will turn to other providers instead, such as reinsurers.