How Singapore Life will shake-up the local insurance industry
Walter de Oude of Aviva Singlife
Jun 20, 2017
In a video interview at the Hubbis Digital Wealth event in Singapore in June, Walter de Oude of Singapore Life explains how the approval of his firm’s licence will help shake-up the insurance space, starting with HNW individuals and then evolving the offering more widely.
As the first local insurer to be licensed in Singapore since 1970, Singapore Life aims to bring something new to the market.
The firm is striving to make the life insurance industry more efficient and accessible by leveraging fintech solutions to empower customers and create a user-centric experience for all, says chief executive officer Walter de Oude. More specifically, it will soon offer solutions that can be easily purchased both digitally and through financial advisers.
He explains that Singapore Life is born from the innovation, dependability and sophistication that defines Singapore as a favoured financial services centre in Asia.
And he sees this as an opportunity to challenge a sector that has not kept pace with innovation, by creating more transparent and flexible solutions.
The starting point will be to target the HNW customer segment, bringing to market a Universal Life (UL) product via the major private banks. It will follow this with a Variable Universal Life (VUL) product, to combine the best of the guaranteed-style UL contracts with the more flexible VUL policies.
De Oude believes the firm will therefore provide attractive alternative HNW solutions to individuals who prefer Singapore as a destination for their wealth and protection.
Singapore Life will then broaden its offering to retail, offering a protection proposition and other products to make it easier for these customers to executive their insurance needs, whether online or via an adviser.
Through these channels and via its technology-based platform, de Oude says Singapore Life will positively contribute to the local insurance industry and encourage better insurance, while keeping pace with the digitally-immersed consumers who are also increasingly savvy buyers.
Founder Director at Aviva Singlife