Singapore's financial institutions started to enable approved claims to be transferred into PayNow within one day.
DBS Bank has partnered FWD, the insurance business arm of Pacific Century Group (PCG), to allow insurance claims to be made within a day with the help of PayNow, an electronic fund transfer service in Singapore. Payments via PayNow are currently capped at a limit of S$200,000 per transaction, FWD said in a media statement.
The move shortens the claims process for customers of insurance companies who are used to getting cheques, which take 4 to 5 days to process. «Many insurers make their claims payouts via cheque – and this has led to unnecessary delays and even lost cheques,» said FWD Singapore chief executive Abhishek Bhatia.
PayNow is an electronic fund transfer service in Singapore available to customers of nine participating banks currently: Bank of China, Citibank Singapore Limited, DBS Bank/POSB, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and United Overseas Bank.
Tapping Digital Platforms
Unwilling to be sidelined by insurance technology (insurtech) startups as the «go-to» channels for insurance products, banks and insurers in the region are hoping to offer insurance products or services in innovative ways. Insurtech firms typically boast of quick responses to client needs by using chatbots, algorithms for price comparison, and digital solutions for faster processing.
AIG Asia Pacific Insurance (AIG Singapore) also recently announced that its customers can now submit travel claims online and request to receive claims payment via PayNow, according to a recent statement.
Last November, OCBC was the first bank in Singapore to distribute health insurance via mobile and Internet banking. Normally, health insurance plans like critical illness, disability, hospitalisation and surgical are not sold via online channels because these require each applicant to undergo a health checkup to evaluate the applicant’s medical condition.
Insurtech Deals Surge in Asia
Etiqa, the insurance arm of Maybank, recently partnered with Grab, the region's leading ride-hailing app to do cross promotions. Maybank also hopes to cash in on the strong interest in insurtech by listing its Etiqa insurance arm on the local stock exchange this year, according to «Reuters».
Last year, Asia-Pacific saw a significant increase in funding for insurtech. Deal values rose 169 percent year on year to $358 million, according to a research by Accenture. The number of deals in Asia-Pacific rose by 27 percent in the same period.
