Peer-to-peer insuring and smartphone sales encouraged to help modernise HK’s insurance sector
Regulator willing to fast track new insurance licence applications, as ‘insurtech’ continues to play increasingly crucial role
Hong Kong finance and insurance firms are being encouraged by the city’s insurance regulator to use smartphone-based, so called insurtech innovations to carry out quicker customer analysis, which will hopefully mean cheaper premiums for customers.
Already several finance companies, too, have expressed interest in applying to fast track their insurance licence applications in Hong Kong to set up innovative internet-based services, according to Insurance Authority chief executive John Leung Chi-yan.
Leung last month revealed the authority would introduce the fast track system, accelerating the approval processes, which currently takes between 12 and 18 months.
“A number of companies have expressed an interest in applying via this fast tracking process. I can’t give any specific details but I can say the authority is very open minded when it comes to new insurtech ideas, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) selling, a model already in use in Germany,” he said.
The P2P model allows group of friends, for instance, to pool their resources to offer insurance protection among themselves, while they could also team up with traditional insurance firms to cover their risks.
The authority says it will now also accept online insurers which use the internet or smartphones to sell basic life insurance, travel or personal accident coverage directly to customers, he said. They, however, could not use agents in such cases.