ZhongAn partners with Grab to explore digital insurance market in Southeast Asia
ZhongAn Online Property and Casualty Insurance Co Ltd announced on Wednesday that its international business arm will establish a joint venture company with Grab Holdings Inc, Southeast Asia’s leading online-to-offline mobile platform, to explore the digital insurance distribution business in the region.
The joint-venture aims to create a digital insurance marketplace that offers innovative insurance products in a range of categories with fractionalized premiums, directly to users through the Grab mobile application.
As part of the agreement, ZhongAn Technologies International Group Limited, a subsidiary for overseas business development formed by ZhongAn Online, will bring technical expertise to build the platform and insight into Internet ecosystems.
Meanwhile, Grab will launch the digital insurance platform through its mobile app and tap its wide user-base and customer insights to deliver customized insurance products to millions of users.
The new firm will collaborate with global insurance partners to develop products that are tailored specifically to the lifestyle needs of southeast Asian people, ZhongAn said.
To start, in conjunction with Chubb, Grab will offer a drivers’ insurance product to its driver-partners in Singapore to protect them from loss of income owing to illness or accident.
The platform will be launched in Singapore in the first half of 2019, before being rolled out in other markets, ZhongAn said. The company will give millions of uninsured and under-insured people access to insurance products through their mobile phones, allowing them to directly browse and pay for affordable insurance products through the Grab app, without going through an agent or broker.
The tie-up will address the often difficult points of insurance discovery, unaffordable premiums and payment options by allowing for insurance premium payments to be adjusted and automatically deducted through GrabPay or its affiliate payment partners.
