PolicyPal Network

The basic modern insurance structure we are familiar with today comprises of carriers and policyholders connected through middleman agents responsible for much of their sales. Despite posing figures accounting for US$3.92 trillion or 5.7% of the world’s economic output, industry has not significantly innovated itself towards greater efficiencies. According to a market report by Munich Re, the Asian market of the insurance industry has the largest growth potential and its market share of primary insurance premiums is expected to be on par with Europe within the next few years. The international primary insurance sector is projected to grow by 4.5% per annum in both 2017 and 2018. By 2025, the market share of emerging markets in Asia is expected to be at 21.4%, drawing close to Europe (24.5%) while North America will still control the largest segment at 27.8%. The insurance climate in emerging countries around the world is still largely untapped as compared to their developed counterparts. While Emerging Asia consists of 43% of the world’s population, they only accounted for a significantly smaller 13% of global insurance premiums in 2016. A big portion of Asia’s 4.4 billion population is still heavily underinsured as compared to the west. Insurtech innovation is on the cusp of further disrupting and making headways into the industry. Insurtech could spur total cost savings of around US$300 billion a year for the Asian insurance industry by 2025, as reported by UBS. It is poised to exponentially accelerate market penetration in emerging countries as the number of uninsured grows and along with it, a demand for risk protection.

The project has two main product lines. First Product Line: CryptoProtect Service for Global Market. Consumers who are using cryptocurrency wallets and trading on exchanges will increasingly look out for solutions to hedge their risk. The project will provide cybersecurity service in partnership with Insurers to protect cryptocurrency assets. Actually, it is a great idea. However, due to the extremely high volatility of base assets, insurance premium may be too high for potential consumers. Also, there is no need for blockchain technology for this product line. Second Product Line: P2P Mutual Aid Products for Emerging Markets. The aim of this P2P mutual aid insurance is to create “insurance powered by communities”, where the more members they have, the stronger the platform becomes. Smart contracts will automate the underwriting of policies and claims handling powered by PolicyPal Network (PYPL) blockchain. First areas for this product are Agricultural Insurance, Property Insurance, Personal Accident Plan and Life Insurance. Blockchain technology really could provide great cost savings and create trusted platform. Nowadays, company has non-blockchain app and working insurance brokerage business. Roadmap is clear and ambitious. In Q1 2019 beta version of the product will be ready and Cryptocurrency insurance with the global insurer will be launched.

Blockchain for this project is crucial technology. There is almost no other way to organize p2p insurance underwriting, especially for c2b model. Blockchain provide substantial cost benefits for this model and in fact could make insurance affordable for unbanked people and organizations in Asia. As a result, in best case project could become a market leader in this field. Also, insurance industry is conservative, as a result, we not expect expansion of huge top-tier companies on this segment of the market. This mean, that market competition in this segment would be small. At the same time, blockchain does not help first product line at all. In fact, it would be usual insurance product with crypto assets as a basis asset. Moreover, PolicyPal Network would be insurance broker on that market, as a result, there is no need for tokens at that segment.

First of all, project has adequate goals for fundraising. It could be compared even to VC valuation. Moreover, project raised an undisclosed seed funding from 500 Startups and a cohort of undisclosed angel investors 17,809 ETH worth at the closed pre-sale stage. In fact, only 6000 ETH is available for public sale. The financial model was not presented in this project, however, it is clear, that project would be partially insurance broker and p2p platform. Both of these models assumes earning commission from the operations at the platform. However, we would say, that first product is b2c and b2b, second product is c2b.

The project team is consist of 14 professionals in their field. All of them have huge corporate experience, however, do not have a successful track record in building startups. At the same time, the project was Singapore's first graduate from the Monetary of Singapore's (MAS) fintech regulatory sandbox. Also, it graduated from the startup acceleration program, Startupbootcamp Fintech Singapore 2016. Moreover, the project raised an undisclosed seed funding from 500 Startups and a cohort of undisclosed angel investors. Detailed information about team members: Val Yap, CEO – Recipient of Forbes’ 30 under 30 awards, with her most recent experience being assistant VP of OCBC Bank. Lucas Chua, CSO – Over 8 years' experience in marketing and strategy with his most recent experience being the APAC Leader for IBM Global Entrepreneur Program at IBM Asia Pacific where he worked with more than 2000 startups in Asia, and mentoring at the Singapore Management University and various top Fintech accelerators in Asia. David Hoong, Head of Broking – Over 20 years’ experience in insurance broking including being a founder at Anda Insurance broking, and general manager of Anthola Insurance Broking. KC Wong, Tech Lead – 2 years’ experience with Nestia as a developer, and another 2 years’ experience at PolicyPal as a software engineer. Experience in a broad array of programming languages. Briefly, the company has a strong team, which was admired by strong VC institutions. Also, they work together since 2016 and already build insurance broker app with a partnership with top-tier insurance companies. However, team does not have successful startup experience. Advisory board is also strong, but they also mostly have corporate experience.