What's New - Week 51

| 21 Dec 2018

It is week 51 of 2018, here's the low down on everything that's happening within the insurance industry. This week, we have new partnerships between major companies, as well as Chairman and Co-CEO appointments from Singapore and China. Read the full article to find out what's what and who's doing what to stay ahead of the game.

So, what’s new in the market?

Singapore: PRUworks digital ecosystem for SMEs

Photo: Dennis Ng, Head of Enterprise Business, Prudential Singapore

PRUworks is a digital ecosystem designed to help small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) grow their business as well as attract and retain talents. It is a one-stop digital shop that gives business owners, HR teams and employees easy and convenient access to insurance, employee benefits and business solutions in one seamless digital experience.

PRUworks is designed for SMEs with an annual turnover of up to S$100 million and headcount of between three and 200 employees.

What PRUworks does:

- Offers insurance plans that provide coverage catered to a company’s size, needs and budget.

- Business owners and HR personnel can adjust insurance coverage based on employee movement. Employees will also have mobile access to a benefits portal which allows them to submit and make claims easily and at anytime

- HealthTech companies include fitness monitoring and tracking, specialist doctor recommendations and health screenings.

- Link businesses that need short and medium-term funding to Validus, a peer-to-peer lending provider

For more details, please visit Prudential.

 

HSBC Life opens a new branch in Shenzhen

HSBC Life Insurance Company Limited has opened a new branch in Shenzhen, China. HSBC Life will offer their range of life insurance products through 10 HSBC bank outlets in Shenzhen.

The range of insurance solutions covers annuity, term and whole life, critical illness and unit-linked insurance products, to meet customers’ growing protection, retirement, education, wealth growth and legacy planning needs.

The opening of the new Shenzhen branch will allow HSBC Life to significantly expand its reach to meet the growing demand from the rising affluent segments for a more diverse and comprehensive range of insurance products and services.

 

AIA and MyDoc partner to promote and reward a healthier Singapore

Photo: Dr. Snehal Patel M.D., J.D. CEO of MyDoc

AIA and MyDoc are working together to promote and reward better health among Singaporeans.

In the partnership, MyDoc is to digitally deliver health screening results for AIA Vitality Members in Singapore and to identify members’ risk for chronic disease by checking their BMI, blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels.

MyDoc is a digital healthcare provider part of Singapore’s Ministry of Health’s (MOH) regulatory sandbox for telemedicine. They have shown a potential reduction in patient healthcare costs by 16% and demonstrated a potential cost saving as high as 28% resulting from improvements in chronic diseases management and aversion of accident and emergency (A&E) services.

With MyDoc being able to reduce healthcare costs, more members would now feel more at ease to complete their health screening test which would in turn allow early detection for treatment to be administered and subsequently monitored.

For more information, click here.

 

Singapore: Aviva partners Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to build future-ready workforce

Aviva Singapore partners Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) under the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) Initiative. As part of IMDA’s TeSA, a Cloud Computing training programme is offered to new and existing employees in Aviva.

For a start, Aviva would send 60 fresh and mid-level cloud computing professionals to further upskill across Cloud Architecture, Cloud Engineering, and Cloud Operations. Aviva hopes to promote digital transformation in the insurance industry but also value-add to the eco-system of IT professionals in Singapore to drive the country’s digital economy. 

Upon completion of the programme, trainees will be able to develop and use computational models, tools and techniques to interpret and understand data, solve problems and guide decision-making.

 

Sun Life Financial invests in Bowtie, Hong Kong’s first virtual insurer under the Insurance Authority’s Fast Track

(From left to right) Mr Clement Lam, General Manager, Life and Health, Sun Life Hong Kong Limited, Mr Michael Chan, Co-CEO and Co-founder, Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited, Mr Fred Ngan, Co-CEO and Co-founder of Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited, Mr Fabien Jeudy, Chief Executive Officer, Sun Life Hong Kong Limited.

Sun Life Hong Kong Limited announced that it has completed a strategic investment in Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited. Bowtie is the first virtual insurer approved under the Fast Track of the Insurance Authority in Hong Kong.

Bowtie will offer insurance products in or from Hong Kong through its digital distribution channels in the first half of 2019, without the use of any conventional channels involving insurance agents, banks or insurance brokers.

Sun Life is an investor of Bowtie, however, the two companies remain separate entities, and Bowtie will operate independently from Sun Life.

Fabien Jeudy, CEO of Sun Life said, “It is part of Sun Life’s digital transformation strategy to make investments in early-stage businesses that have the potential to transform the insurance industry, the investment in Bowtie is a great reflection of Sun Life’s belief in technology and innovative ways to provide protection solutions.”

 

Australia: Landmark code developed as a monitoring solution

Six major professional associations representing the financial planning/ advice sector have signed a historic cooperation agreement to develop a code monitoring solution for their members.

The associations will work together to submit a code monitoring compliance scheme to Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The compliance scheme will comply with the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) code of ethics to be monitored and enforced.

The six associations working together for this code are: Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA), Association of Financial Advisers (AFA), Boutique Financial Planners (BFP), Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA), Self Managed Super Fund Association (SMSF Association), and Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association (SAFAA).

 The agreement between the associations will also leverage economies of scale to provide an efficient, streamlined code monitoring solution for the financial advice profession. The associations participating in this will be able to offer the code monitoring compliance scheme to their members.


People on the move

NTUC Income names Ronald Ong as new Chairman of the Board from 1 January 2019

Mr Ronald Ong (left) to succeed Mr Stephen Lee (right) as NTUC Income’s Chairman of the Board.

NTUC Income announced Mr Ronald Ong Whatt Soon as Chairman of the Board, to succeed Mr Stephen Lee Ching Yen, with effect from 1 January 2019.

Mr Ong has a distinguished career in banking that spans over 30 years. He is currently the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (South-east Asia) at Morgan Stanley and has been with the bank for 20 years in various roles, with substantial experience in mergers and acquisitions, as well as, capital markets.

Mr Ong has been a Board Member in Income since August 2018, and he also sits on the Board of NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Limited and Next 50 Limited. In addition to being a member of the Listings Advisory Committee of the Singapore Stock Exchange, Mr Ong also serves on the Advisory Board of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at the Singapore Management University (SMU) and of the Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics, also at SMU.

 

Ping An appoints Co-Chief Executive Officers

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd announced they have appointed three Co-Chief Executive Officers to deepen the company's strategic transformation and the development of three major business lines, and continue and improve the corporate governance and decision-making mechanism. They are Mr Lee Yuansiong, Mr Xie Yonglin, and Ms Tan Sin Yin.

The three Co-CEOs are in charge of retail customers’ integrated financial business, corporate customers’ integrated financial business and technology businesses of the company.

The establishment of the Co-CEO decision-making mechanism is to institutionalise organisation system and to implement “collective decision-making, correspondent responsibilities and matrix management”.

Mr Lee Yuansiong joined Ping An in 2004 and has a Master's Degree in Finance from Cambridge University. He is currently Executive Deputy General Manager, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Insurance Business Officer of Ping An Group.

Mr Xie Yonglin has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Management from Nanjing University. He joined Ping An in 1994. He has served as the Deputy General Manager of Ping An Group since September 2016 and has served as the Chairman of Ping An Bank since December 2016.

Ms Tan Sin Yin holds a Double Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She joined Ping An in 2013 as the Chief Information Officer and Chief Operating Officer. She has served as the company's Deputy Chief Executive Officer since October 2017.

For more details on Ping An, click here.

 

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