Contemi & Singlife: A Strategic Partnership Disrupting Insurance

ABOUT SINGLIFE

Singlife (formerly known as Singapore Life) is a technology-focused insurance company in Singapore. Singlife is strong believer of that the world needs a better kind of insurance company: using the smartest technologies to make insurance totally digital, with automated efficiencies to make it more convenient and affordable. Singlife, provides insurance solutions from individuals to the high net worth (HNW) customer segment who prefer Singapore as a destination for their wealth and protection.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

• Meeting business objectives

Singlife was built on a simple belief: that the world needed a better life insurer which used technology to provide a superior experience for the customer. They wanted to simplify insurance purchase journey for people, and offer efficient, transparent, and flexible solutions, while at the same time reducing costs. The company believed that innovation and early adoption of the technology for insurance decisioning were critical to its business initiative and to the overall success of its objective.

• Keep pace with technological advancements

Singlife was challenged by increasing digitalisation, they noted that the life insurance industry has not kept pace with the innovation seen in other industries and needs to be challenged to be better.

• Enhance customer experience

The insurer wanted a technology architecture that enables greater flexibility while keeping the customer at the heart of its operations, something that truly separates Singlife from other leading financial institutions worldwide and ultimately enable them to provide a better buying experience and pricing for the customer. Their goal was to offer insurance solutions via its online platforms, transform and automate their customer and advisor relationship and experience. The organisation wanted to provide streamlined business process for agents.

Focused on providing the most efficient solutions and world- class level experience to its customers, Singlife wanted to implement the new technology architecture quickly. Business and IT were both involved in the evaluation process.

FINDING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

It was clear that the insurer needed to find a vendor that understands their business and add value to their thinking, solutions and designs constantly. Someone who can manage it all; architecture, design, development, testing and rollouts in the entire product lifecycle.

SOLUTION: A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH CONTEMI

After careful evaluation of available systems, Singlife decided to partner with Contemi, a global leader in next generation IT solutions and supporting customers through digitialisation journeys. Contemi started working with Walter de Oude (Founder and CEO of Singlife) and his team, at the Singlife design and proof-of-concept stage in 2014, and today still works with Singlife on delivering key pieces of the IT platform. Contemi enjoys thoroughly working with Singlife and hope to do so for many years to come as Singlife’s success continues. For Mr. Walter De Oude the relationship between the two presents the way in which SingLife truly values its partners.

“We found in Contemi a good companion. There are several aspects that we deeply value with Contemi. First, their proactive and deeply supportive culture, which lies at the heart of all our key relationships. Secondly, they understand our business and they add value to our thinking and our solutioning and our designs constantly. Thirdly, the technical skills and knowledge and, increasingly, experience, arising from Contemi’s home in Vietnam,” says Walter De Oude, Founder & CEO of Singlife.

It is this third part in particular that highlights Contemi’s role in the growth of Singlife. Mr. Walter notes that the education system, culture, work ethic and competitive landscape in Contemi Vietnam is rapidly transforming, giving rise to what Singlife believes is a “powerful new force in technology, particularly in software development”.

Contemi has been integral to the Singlife’s architectural, design, development, testing and rollout capabilities, participating and collaborating in the entire product lifecycle.

"Sustainability in any friendship arises from mutual contribution to the relationship. For Singlife, we work hard to contribute to all our friendships. For Contemi we experience their contribution continuously and proactively and we benefit from their insights and experiences,” says Mr. Walter.

Business Benefits and the future

Contemi has taken the lead role in developing Singlife’s direct and advised portals. Every customer of Singlife engages with the company through these portals, as do its advisors, and so Contemi allows the company to innovate and to improve both the portals and the customer and advisor relationships.

Mr. Walter says that their policy serving is accessed via their portals in the first instance, meaning that an increased portion of customers’ needs are performed directly by customers and advisors in their portals.

“We are continuously expanding the capabilities of the portals so that the experience is maintained at a world- class level and so that customers and advisors access the most efficient solutions for their needs. We very much look forward to Contemi continuing in this role as we expand into new business lines and geographically,” he says.

Find out more about the Contemi and Singlife strategic partnership here.

If you are looking to start something new in insurance – could be a new business line, a new partnership, a new distribution channel, a new claims process, a new eco-system integration and customer engagement model, etc. – and you are now thinking about the underpinning IT solution - please reach us at info@contemi.com and let’s talk about it.

No promises, but let’s see if we can’t help putting a bit of thunder into the IT part of your project.