Hello and welcome to our Swiss Re studio here in Zurich.
It's a real pleasure to host you today.
My name is Yannick Even, and I'm a Global Analytic Partner at Swiss Re.
Today we will discuss about the positive impacts
of digitalization, technology and data for society.
And we will particularly focus on the opportunity
and challenge of embedded insurance,
looking into embedded health in particular.
So I'm really pleased to host
today in our studio two very well-known
insurtech leaders worldwide.
Starting with Sabine, it's a real pleasure to welcome you at our studio here.
And such a well-known insurtech influencers.
Can you tell us a bit more about what you currently do and the role
you play within this embedded insurance ecosystem?
Thank you very much.
Yes, Sabine Vanderlinden and I actually am
the CEO and managing partner of Alchemy Crew.
Okay. Alchemy Crew is a venture.
So we build venture plans for, you know, established players like yourself.
And we do that in two ways.
We do R&D and we do commercialization.
So either pure R&D, so research, on demand research or commercialization.
So learning to work faster and better with startups.
Excellent.
In addition to that, we also
do a lot of,
I would say, social media branding work and also work with organizations
like yours and Sebastian to find places where there are gaps
and find new opportunities to drive value
for customers, consumers
in the world and actually deal with the protection gap.
That Swiss Re is very well versed on.
Indeed. Thank you, Sabine.
Well, Sebastian, it's great to have you here.
You recently moved from Shanghai to Brussels,
scaling your success that you had in China, now globally.
So can you tell us a bit more about your company, The CareVoice?
And where do you see The CareVoice playing a role into this ecosystem?
Thank you, Yannick.
So, yeah, I'm the CEO of CareVoice.
We are a global embedded health leader that enables insurers
to engage with their customers
through configurable user journey and leveraging an open health ecosystem.
So why does it matter?
Actually, I think health became, if not the the highest
but really high priority for consumers, for employees, for everyone.
And actually, insurers maybe a decade ago started to combine
some digital based health services with insurance.
But there is I think now we have the boom of digital health,
a wealth of opportunities for insurance to embrace embodied health,
meaning bringing relevant health services
to their customers in one
unique know, single integrated experience.
So we've seen some digital carriers,
you know, being quite active from day one, such as Oscar, and Alan
in the health space or e-life to really differentiate themselves
with such health value, whatever easy medical navigation,
mental health services, rewarding you for your physical activities.
But actually, most, most insurers and traditional insurers struggle
unless they can work with some tech
enablers and companies like CareVoice, which CareVoice OS,
which is the first health engagement operations system for insurers.
We started from Hong Kong, China,
and now we expanded across all the regions.
We worked initially we have 20 insurers, but
we really work with a few major insurers now to bring embedded health
and solutions to 3 million life and health customers.
And really glad to be here today because we see players like Swiss Re
building, also a strong driving force of transforming
the industry and making embedded health adopted more widely.
Excellent.
A real pleasure to have both of you here in our studio.
So the way we will structure the discussion today,
if you're okay, is first to discuss a bit about the overall opportunity
of embedded finance, then deep dive into embedded health.
And where we see the
the trends and the success and the opportunities and challenge.
Then we will move into another part
where we go more into the scalability.
So what are the success factors to enable companies
across the ecosystem to scale into embedded health.
Before we conclude, is it good for you?
Yes, good.
Let's carry on...
It's not new.
It's been now two three years that embedded finance, embedded insurance.
It's very trendy in all the conferences that the three of us attend
very regularly.
We actually together with iptiQ, which is our B2B2C
value proposition here at Swiss Re, we sponsored
a recent report on
looking at embedded insurance 2.0.
It's free online I really encourage you to to have a look
looking at the opportunities and challenge of the all
embedded insurance value proposition.
The research that we did in in this report suggests that embedded
insurance 2.0, as it's called,
could actually address 60% of non-life insurance
in the coming years and 30% of life insurance.
So we're speaking here about a really massive opportunity,
something that also we covered
in our report 'Embedded Health' that we supported
earlier this year with most of you as the author and also Matt
from Sonar.
Basically we see
clearly embedded insurance as the means to address the protection gap.
As you just mentioned, making insurance more affordable
and deliver a stronger business outcome,
but also realizing the huge potential
to increase access and the use of unique data sets.
To better manage risk, better understand
the risk that we are onboard with this data available
with the
consent of the customers throughout this ecosystem.
So unique data sets that help us better understand
the customer needs to craft the right product or services
at the right point of time was in their journey.
And for us, the reinsurer, where we're really interested to derive from this data
risk insight to go into a new risk pools that we're not addressed before
because of the lack of insight or understanding.
But also doing better on the current and risk pools that we cover today
with better data-driven risk insights.
So with that,
it was great to collaborate, by the way, on the 'Embedded
Health' report earlier, which was the both of you and Matt.
Sabine, .
what are the key white papers takeaway for you?
So for me, first, I would like to start Yannick
was just reminding everyone about embedded finance. Yes.
And so it's about financial services being mixed with non-financial services.
So imagine you go and buy your shopping.
In my case, might be Waitrose or Marks and Spencer.
Once upon a time I could buy.
I am London based.... We can see now.
And so I could actually find, products around my credit card or, you know, getting a new credit card
or insurance at the counter, you know, at the checkout.
And so you have a retailer giving you access to financial services, products.
And in 2018, actually with the European Payment
Directive, this became much more widely available.
So from financial services to embedded finance, we then move to embedded
insurance, which is about now adding insurance to the credit card
to actually your shopping basket in some ways.
And the interesting thing when I look at the numbers is that when
you look at young ventures
for the research and for the report,
we saw that $32 billion are being invested
so far, let's say, for the past ten years in embedded finance startups,
including insurance and including health care. Yes.
Check the numbers just before coming here now is around 42 billion.
Already. In just in a few months.
And what you will find is that whilst last year
we have probably $9 billion on investment, this year is going to be $10 billion.
So it's going to be pretty break even.
And this is probably the only market in fintech which is going to stay still.
FinTech is going to go down, InsurTech is going to go down
in investment by around 30% this year.
So when you look at the characteristic alternative finance,
so around the $11 billion followed by banking tech
which was around 7 billion, and then you also have
payment
by payment which is around, I think 7 billion.
And the fourth is insurance, which is around 1 billion.
So you actually start seeing that organizations, startups
and corporates and investors are realizing that there is an opportunity in embedded
across different market because a customer needs it.
And the customer needs it because they find it often difficult
to understand the product and services which are offered to them.
And technology today allows us to commoditize, I would say, or
democratize and monetize services in a much better way.
Yeah. Thank you.
That's very good insight.
Sebastien, on your side coming now into health
and embedded health in particular.
With your role as an orchestrator.
If I understood well of all the services provided to the end customer,
what would you see as the best practice
to succeed, to engage with the customer
and to provide the right services at the right moment of time, while
also managing all this risk that we speaking about.
Yes, I think very good to come first.
on what's the scope around embedded health.
And and I would say embedded health is about inserting health services
like spreading health service into a non-health
offering.
And so this could be pretty broad because you you see
it's around addressing the consumer health needs along their journey.
So from, you know prevention, diagnosis,
treatment and follow ups.
But it's also about how to to cater to different populations,
you know, more health conscious people maybe willing to be
supported around their physical or nutrition activities.
People with some, you know, around mental health could be just as simple
as the triage issue, but also more severe conditions
could be also how to get access to alternative
medical services delivery, right. Making it more efficient.
And then you have sub-populations like elderly or even young,
young kids in many different ways.
So ultimately there is a true value from a consumer angle.
If you can help
make it
make it much more convenient for people bringing these with confidence on
how to be healthier, how to access services and ultimately whether
it could be covered by my insurance or at a more affordable cost.
So what's in it for insurers?
And then what what could be the challenge to you to step in?
And first is really about,
you know, you mentioned the protection gap, so definitely about
acquisition of customers because you start to have a value proposition
that goes beyond just a risk, but really helping people with the health
on on a daily basis but also be more tailored to different customer needs.
And then you can unlock new ways to reach those customers
because you can go where those customers are
that I think is a first big value on on really growth of the insurance.
And then it's really about retention of customers because usually insurance
could remain quite far from their customers.
So how you have much more touchpoints and really being able to engage frequently
with the customer so that they remain, you know, with you along the way.
And then you can start to accumulate very interesting data of course
provided that you and some of the of the challenge
of and ensuring in terms of data protection for consumers.
But you accumulate data about consumers so you can provide better
the risk of the consumer and then influence that risk leading to,
you know less and less claims, but also potentially new products design, new
service offering, and ultimately also you design the whole customer experience.
So you drive
operation costs down, right, which again
enabling that more affordable offering to customers.
So for sure, there are some, some barriers to be adopted and to scale.
So we've seen we've seen a few
interesting points that we mentioned around point solution.
And it's true that with some insurers
tend to, you know, start with a very specific health tech.
Okay let's let's bring a telemedicine or let's work with mental health.
But ultimately that creates great challenge to scale is usually delivered
in silos outside the customer experience and only works for specific plan
so how you can have a more holistic approach and depending
on who you are servicing you can you can scale the solution.
So adapt the services based on your customer needs
that could go could be quite micro as well.
Yeah.
So do you is is it only data that help you to segment this understanding
of what kind of health services the customer needs?
Or is there also specific technology that enables
a company like yours or insurers to crack it?
I think there is one one capability around
a good engagement framework.
Because you can pull together a set of services
and you can have some assumptions about,
you know, who may need what in your different tier of customers,
but ultimately is also about how the end user engages with your app.
So you know, what goal they want to pursue.
They are different pillars and different dimension in health
that they may want you to improve or be supported with.
So having that loop with the end user around
which area, how what do you want to improve?
And then based on that derive, you know, task content
services, and you know, even go to rewarding
the customers along the journey, helping him to keep improving
or making more efficiencies to consume services.
So that leads to this you know data privacy and
security, and how you help insurers to have a better understanding
of what they can do, and how they can do it.
How they can do it really in a pure, safe way but also with the right level of concern
from the consumers and what the value is for the consumers.
And this we see
also some differences in the markets, but I think is going to come more and more.
And ultimately it's really about also leadership decisions.
We've seen a lot that has been done which is good
for building the foundation
and the willingness of insurers to go.
So, you know, small initiatives in different markets, different insurers.
But I think now it's really about like some insurers already taking very clear
strategic decision, a three to five year plan.
This is something that they want to do.
They want to make it happen and scale across markets.
So that's that's also a super important way
or factor to scale.
It's great to see that it's finally coming to our industry.
Thank you.