PolicyPal, based in Singapore is Asia’s first independent app that uses artificial intelligence to simplify and digitize insurance. Users can manage and optimize policies through the AI chatbot and PolicyPal offers personalized recommendations on insurance policies, enabling users to get new protection on the go. The mobile app gives users a convenient digital folder of their policies from different insurers. Users are also able to buy policies through the app. It allows users to speak with ‘Kate’, PolicyPal’s digital insurance manager, to know their protection needs before purchasing coverage.

PolicyPal was started out of frustration with buying and managing insurance. The pain of dealing with messy paperwork and emails as well as the need to keep track of renewal dates. For too long, insurance has been complex and vague. PolicyPal offers an end-to-end solution, from purchase to management. For insurance purchases, PolicyPal is not only able to objectively identify gaps in a consumer’s insurance portfolio (thereby providing tailored solutions), but also able to advise consumers to take another look at their insurance coverage when a change of life stage occurs, based on the consumer’s data shared through Facebook. For example, if the user updates Facebook with a message of a newborn, personalized congratulatory messages and advice to increase coverages can be transmitted at the right moment. Research have shown that 41% of insurance purchases are made when key life events occur. PolicyPal is able to increase conversion through such targeted marketing and reduce cost on insurer’s often futile blanket marketing.

During insurance management, consumers commonly experience the problem of unfamiliar insurance jargon with a common definition. For example, the generic term “Critical Illness” may similarly be referred to as Crisis Cover, Dread Diseases or Enhanced Critical Life by different insurers. PolicyPal employs the use of a clever optical character recognition technique to extract and map the terms to the generic term. This increases the simplicity for consumers to understand their combined Critical Illness payout amount or other payout amount without any hassle. Also, PolicyPal helps consumers manage their individual and family policies all in one place. Consumers will be allowed to nominate their loved ones to access their policies in the event of an unexpected scenario.

PolicyPal, launched in April 2016 has become the first entrant to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s regulatory sandbox. This is a live environment where financial institutions and fintech startups can test new products and services. PolicyPal firm is now testing its solutions over a six-month period, by partnering with NTUC Income and Etiqa Insurance to distribute insurance products to consumers. They have 5 insurance companies lined up and already 9,000 users signed in. The startup has already locked in some high-profile users. Singapore sporting celebrity Ronald Susilo is a fan and has been using the app for six months.

How does it work?
PolicyPal utilises OCR coupled with taxonomy which maps the technical insurance jargon to the relevant fields. Consumers simply take a picture of the summary page of their insurance policies. After which, they will get a clear overview of their insurance policies and current coverage. PolicyPal brings transparency of the insurance policies to the consumers. Subsequently, through rule-based algorithms and aggregation, PolicyPal allows users to view their insurance portfolio in one page and understand their coverage gaps. PolicyPal increases the access to insurance protection coverage for consumers and increases the efficiency of the insurance companies by automating certain processes that are still done manually.

PolicyPal built an AI chatbot, Kate, to automate the sales process and answer the commonly asked questions regarding insurance. Through automation of the data for profiling, the users
would be getting insurance policies on the digital platform while operational costs are lower than traditional offline distribution. PolicyPal platform is easily scalable, with the application of artificial intelligence, to offer suggestions on insurance policies powered by smart analysis of profiles. With the data PolicyPal helps to consolidate from the user’s profile, and helps to automate the application form filling for needs analysis to increase the efficiency for on-boarding and distribution. Also with PolicyPal’s growing user base, the use of Watson Analytics will enable them to help insurers obtain and uncover new customer insights to tailor products suitable to the new generation.

Why we selected PolicyPal for DIA Amsterdam
PolicyPal, displays all of a user’s existing insurance coverage plans on a single screen. Telling them when to renew specific plans as well as when a premium payment is due and give recommendations to improve coverage. Embedded within tons of artificial intelligence and machine learning, PolicyPal will help insurance companies to make a giant leap forward in digital transaction management while putting the customer at the heart of the process.   

At DIA Amsterdam Val Ji-Hsuan Yap, CEO and Yiming Ng, Product Manager will show and tell.

Who are PolicyPal?
PolicyPal was one of the startups that graduated from Startupbootcamp Fintech Singapore’s second cohort last year. The idea came after Val Ji-Hsuan Yap, the CEO, saw her mother’s insurance application rejected. Val’s mom was diagnosed with cancer at the time. She has recovered but the insurance company refused to pay up because the family had missed a couple of payments. That was just because of sheer forgetfulness. The same year, Val’s father passed away due to a sudden heart attack. The future CEO was unaware of how much insurance he had and needed to visit all the insurer branch offices to find out. That’s when Val saw the need to assist others like her family to manage and track insurance coverage.

The technical aspects of the product are handled by Sunjin Lee – former founding engineer at Viki, which was acquired by Rakuten for US$200 million. Overall there’s a team of 11 people, working at PolicyPal.

Val Ji-Hsuan Yap, CEO PolicyPal

“We partner with insurers to provide an alternative platform for consumers that will automate part of their insurance journey such as the consolidation of insurance policies and answering basic consumer questions” Val Ji-Hsuan Yap, CEO PolicyPal

Website: www.policypal.co

Presenter: Val Jihuan Yap
Presenter: Yi Ming Ng

Contact Info: Val Yap
Email: [email protected]