OVO’s Parent Company Collaborates with ZA Tech to Enter Insurance

The parent of OVO‘s financial technology (fintech) startup, PT Bumi Cakrawala Perkasa (BCP) hooked up with the Hong Kong corporation, ZhongAn Technologies International Group Limited (ZA Tech) to form a joint venture or joint venture.

Both plan to create an insurance technology platform (insurtech). ZA Tech is a subsidiary of an insurance company from China, ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co. However, ZA Tech was founded in Hong Kong.

President Director of BCP Jason Thompson said the company is exploring the insurtech sector because of its great potential. He noted that only 1.7% of the total population of over 265 million have private insurance products.

“We want to jointly encourage digital transformation in Indonesia for insurance companies. That way, it can accelerate the adoption of insurance in the archipelago,” said Jason as quoted from a press release, Tuesday (22/12).

Jason claims, his service will make it easier for insurance companies to digitize products. This is because manual back-end processes are automated and premium calculations simplified. ZA Tech CEO Bill Song said the insurtech platform would be launched next year.

“This allows easy and safe access to digital insurance services for the public,” he said. Last May, OVO also partnered with the insurance company Prudential Indonesia to provide life, accident and Covid-19 insurance services on the platform.

There are about 222 thousand people who registered as of May. Previously, ZA Tech partnered with Grab to form a joint venture digital insurance marketplace in Southeast Asia in January 2019. Based on CB Insights data, Grab invested in OVO.

Grab also hooked up with Chubb insurance company to offer protection products to driver-partners in Singapore. It aims to protect partners from the risk of losing income due to illness or accidents.

Insurtech Service Demand Rises during the Pandemic

The demand for insurtech services for certain protection has indeed increased during the corona pandemic. Qoala, already processed over 2 million policies per month. The number is soaring compared to last year’s only 7,000 policies per month. Another example is PasarPolis, that recorded the demand for shipping service insurance increased 12 times during the pandemic.

Insurance services for Gojek driver-partners was purchased by more than 200 thousand times during 2020. McKinsey in his report entitled “The future of life Insurance” estimates, insurance companies excel if they master three fields in the next decade.

The three of them are personalizing the consumer experience, flexible products, and enhancing employee capabilities. In Asia and Europe for example, life insurance companies have offered administrative support for medical visits, health management, and telemedicine.

“Going forward, these companies could partner with ride-hailing companies and hotels to provide transportation to doctors or accommodation for families when needed,” the report was quoted as saying. This innovation is considered to be an opportunity for companies to increase transactions, especially in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Cooperation that will Facilitate Insurance Services in Indonesia

ZA Tech as a joint venture between SoftBank Vision Fund 1 and ZA International which serves as the ZhongAn Online platform to expand international business. This platform also provides the main digital infrastructure system for insurance companies in distributing their digital insurance products.

Meanwhile BCP is the parent company of OVO (PT Visionet Internasional), which has a presence on 115 million devices, as well as P2P Taralite lending provider (PT Indonusa Bara Sejahtera), which is collectively known as the “OVO Group”.

The strategic partnership between BCP and ZA Tech further emphasizes the position of the OVO Group as a technology enabler for the rapidly growing Indonesian financial services market.

“We are confident that this collaboration with BCP will accelerate the adoption of digital insurance and allow easy and safe access to digital insurance services for Indonesians,” said Bill Song, CEO of ZA Tech.