Igloo, a Singapore-based insurtech focused on underserved communities in Southeast Asia, announced it has raised a Series B extension of $27 million, bringing the round’s total to $46 million. The first tranche of $19 million was announced in March, and led by Cathay innovation with participation from ACA and returning investors OpenSpace.
The newest round was led by the InsuResilience Investment Fund II, which was launched by the German development bank KfW for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and is managed by impact investor BlueOrchard. Other lead investors were the Women’s World Banking Asset Management (WAM), FinnFund, La Maison and returning investors Cathay Innovation.
Igloo develops its insurance products and then partners with insurers who underwrite their policies. Igloo currently works with 20 global, regional and local insurers across Southeast Asia. It distributes its insurance products through partnerships, and is partnered with over 55 companies in 7 countries. It now offers 15 products, including policies for gig workers, gamers, cars and farmers in Vietnam, and says it has facilitated more than 300 million policies and increased gross written premiums by 30 times since 2019.
Co-founder and CEO Raunak Mehta told TechCrunch that Igloo decided to raise a Series B extension because of investor interest after the first tranche of funds. The extension will give the startup a multiyear runway and will be used for hiring, infrastructure and merger and acquisitions opportunities.
Mehta said that the penetration rate of insurance in much of Southeast Asia is low, less than $100 USD per capita across Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Igloo was created to make insurance more affordable and relevant to the needs of communities in Southeast Asia. Igloo distributes insurance products that range from 2 cents USD for phone screen protection to $600 USD for comprehensive motor insurance.
Igloo provides the tech stack for its products across Southeast Asia, which Mehta says means the entire insurance value chain, from product discovery to claims, is available on one platform. This makes it faster for it to brings the policies it distributes to market more quickly, and significantly reduce the operational cost of claims.
Mehta said more than 80% of claims are currently managed in an automated or semi-automated way, and that big data management, along with machine learning and artificial intelligence, has enabled it to reduce anti-selection risks, false positives and fraudulent claims. By bringing down the cost of managing claims, Igloo is able to offer lower premium to customers.
An example of Igloo’s insurance policies include ones for gig economy riders that it sells through its partnership with Foodpanda in Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines, and Lozi and Ahamove Vietnam. Its policy for Foodpanda, called PandaCare, includes motor, personal accident and hospitalization income protection for workers.
Another, more recent one, is is Weather Index Insurance product in Vietnam. The policy uses blockchain-backed smart contracts and automates claims payouts by using pre-assigned values for crop losses caused by weather and other natural events. Igloo says the Weather Index Insurance is Vietnam’s first parametric insurance (or a policy that agrees to make pre-agreed payouts based on trigger events like a flood) and its first integration of smart contracts into insurance.
Igloo also provides products that Mehta says directly or indirectly benefits women, through a partnership with Philinsure in the Philippines. They have distributed more than 5 million policies that cover credit default, personal accident, family relief and natural calamity support to women micro-entrepreneurs and their families. In Vietnam, more than 65% of the agents who use Igloo’s Ignite digital platform to sell insurance policies are women, and they are also the main beneficiaries of the Weather Index Insurance product.
The insurtech’s distribution partners include telecoms like Telkomsel, AIS and Mobifone, and e-commerce platforms like Shopee, Lazada, Bukalapak and JD.ID. It also works with financial service providers, like AEON, Gcash and UnionBank, to sell policies for their customer base, and provides products for insuring goods in transit and protecting fleet drivers through logistics platforms like Ahamove, Shippit, Loship and Locad.
Other Southeast Asia-based insurtechs that want to increase insurance penetration in the region and have raised large Series B rounds include Indonesia’s Fuse and PasarPolis and Thailand’s Sunday.
Source @TechCrunch
