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Igloo kicks off 2025 with Multi-market Partnership Wins and Chief Distribution Officer Appointment

Leading regional insurtech Igloo enters 2025 with a strong push, launching new partnerships, introducing new products with existing partners across the region, and appointing a Chief Distribution Officer to grow its embedded insurance and sales intermediaries business lines.

Sasitharan Krishnan, Chief Distribution Officer, Igloo

New and enhanced partnerships with leading brands

Building on their collaboration in 2024, Igloo and Salmon are strengthening their partnership in 2025 with the launch of Gadget Protection in the Philippines. This new offering will cover device repairs and replacements for gadgets purchased through Salmon’s platform, complementing their existing loan protection coverage, which safeguards repayments in case of unforeseen incidents.

Similarly, Igloo’s partnership with Skyro, which introduced Gadget Protection and Loan Protection last year, is expanding in 2025 with the introduction of Goods Protection. Through this new product, home furniture, clothing, auto accessories, and even toys can now be protected from the same everyday risks.

As access to credit remains a challenge in the Philippines, consumer finance platforms like Salmon and Skyro provide financial and insurance access to underbanked and unbanked segments. These platforms currently serve an estimated 300,000 Filipinos.

Igloo continues to strengthen its ties with Shopee in the Philippines, launching its fifth product, Goods Protection to its existing suite. Since 2022, the partnership has facilitated over 16.9 million protection plans across product lines with Shopee’s 56 million monthly visitors .

Underwritten by SeaInsure, Goods Protection covers eligible items purchased on the platform — such as electronics accessories, vehicle spare parts, baby gear, and office supplies — that suffer total loss or damage due to accidents like fire, collision, falls, liquid damage, or being run over.

In Indonesia, Igloo has two new partnerships under its belt — with leading fintech company Akulaku, and consumer finance platform Kredivo. With the former, gadget protection service underwritten by Victoria Insurance, covers repairs and replacements for gadgets purchased on the platform with a one-year coverage period. With smartphone users expected to reach 249.95 million by 2029, this service meets the growing demand for reliable device protection in the country’s increasingly digital market.

Igloo also continues to innovate with new offerings like Xtra Protection — its fifth product with Indonesian e-wallet platform DANA, which currently serves 200 million users. As more Indonesians move to digital payments with transactions expected to grow to US$371.6 billion in 2025, the product is timely, protecting users from lost wallet balances due to fraud.

Igloo’s collaboration with consumer finance platform Kredivo — which serves more than 10 million users, introduces Travel Domestic, covering trip cancellations, lost baggage, and more.

In Thailand, Igloo has expanded its partnership with e-payment and financial services provider True Money to include coverage for cars and motorcycles, building on the success of its health and accident insurance offering from the previous year, this new product extends protection to approximately 20.7 million registered vehicles across the country. Meanwhile, the successful collaboration with Lazada Thailand, which serves millions of customers in the country, also sees the addition of a fifth product — Flight Insurance for domestic and international trips.

“These partnerships underscore Igloo’s efforts to make insurance more seamless and integrated into everyday online transactions, and as we enter 2025, we are building on this momentum by deepening our commitment to making insurance more accessible, affordable, and seamlessly integrated into digital experiences. The slew of new partnerships — and the expansion of existing ones — within the first months in 2025 heralds our positive trajectory and highlights the continued value we provide in embedding insurance across diverse industries in Southeast Asia,” Mehta added.

Key regional hire to accelerate growth in Southeast Asia

In addition, Igloo has added to its leadership fold Chief Distribution Officer (CDO) Sasitharan Krishnan who brings over 30 years of expertise from the insurance distribution sector serving as Senior Vice President for Asia Affinity at insurance giant Sompo and Chief Officer of Digital Sales at Allianz Ayudhya Assurance.

In his role, Sasi will drive Igloo’s distribution strategy with a key focus on brokering regional deals, and increased value for Igloo and its partners through relationships with regional and local insurers. He will also bring mentorship and rigor to Igloo’s commercial organisation.

“With Sasitharan’s addition, we will make significant strides in accelerating growth,” Mehta explained. “His extensive experience in insurance distribution and digital sales will be instrumental in building new partnerships, driving value for Igloo and our partners and ensuring our products are consumer-centric, accessible, and effectively delivered across business lines.”

Learn more about Igloo, its partnerships, and technology by visiting iglooinsure.com.

About Igloo

Igloo is a regional full-stack insurtech firm headquartered in Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and tech centres in China and India. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimise and enhance existing products and services. It has partnered with over 75 well-known brand names across the markets in various verticals, including insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, hospitality, health tech and financial services. Recognized by the industry for its innovations and expertise, Igloo was named ‘Insurtech of the Year’ in the 2023 and 2024 Asia Fintech Awards.

For more information, please visit https://iglooinsure.com/.

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Email: Igloo@preciouscomms.com

Igloo closes US$36M Pre-Series C fundraise with 50% valuation increase

Regional insurtech Igloo today announced that it has closed a US$36 million Pre-Series C funding round. Global investment firm Eurazeo, through its insurtech fund backed by the insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, led the investment. Openspace and La Maison, who previously participated in Igloo’s Series B and Series B+ fundraises, also joined in, reaffirming their confidence in the company’s strong business fundamentals. Eurazeo invested through its insurtech fund focused on innovative technologies and business ideas disrupting the insurance industry, whilst Openspace’s investment in this round comes via its mid-stage fund, OSV+, which is focused on the Series C and D rounds of transformative technology companies in Southeast Asia.

Matthieu Baret, Managing Partner – Venture at Eurazeo shared: “We are thrilled to invest in Igloo with the insurer BNP Paribas Cardif. With our investments in China, Indonesia, India, and Singapore, we’re extending our footprint with the ambition to become a leading player in Asia.”

“We have been following Igloo for some time now and have been impressed with their evolution into a diversified insurance platform across channels and products. The insurance market in Southeast Asia is still very underpenetrated and we believe Igloo is in a strong position to help solve this by making insurance more easily accessible and understandable for consumers,” shared Albert Shyy, Managing Director, Eurazeo.

This latest round comes just 10 months after Igloo’s previous Series B+ fundraise led by BlueOrchard-managed InsuResilience Investment Fund II. In total, the company has raised US$100 million. Notably, Igloo’s Pre-Series C round closed at an increased valuation of 50 percent from its Series B+ round in 2022, as the company moves closer to profitability in 2024. Igloo is on track to double its 2022 Gross Written Premiums (GWP) at a low burn rate; its robust engineering core and data focus, the company’s path to profitability in 2024 is set.

“We’re always thrilled when the opportunity arises to keep investing in a company at the mid-stage that we’ve previously backed – and Igloo’s recent growth and steps towards profitability have given us further confidence in the business’s ability to capture and expand the insurance market in Southeast Asia,” said Jessica Huang Pouleur, Partner, Openspace Ventures. “Our team has been actively involved in working with Igloo to this point, and those existing relationships will enable us to seamlessly continue adding operational and commercial value as the business integrates, acquires, and strengthens capabilities.”

Asia’s insurance market is brimming with untapped potential, especially in emerging economies like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Despite the rising adoption of insurance, many remain underinsured. This vast, underserved demographic has caught the attention of investors, with companies like Igloo standing out due to their innovative approach to the evolving landscape in these markets – addressing pain points across the insurance value chain for insurers, sales intermediaries, retailers and consumers.

Igloo’s recent scores include two innovative offerings. In 2022, it launched Ignite by Igloo, a digital platform that enhances the productivity of sales intermediaries in Vietnam and Indonesia. Ignite by Igloo works with 22,000 sales intermediaries and agent partners and aims to close 2023 with 50,000 agents as it expands into other markets. In line with Igloo’s purpose of improving financial inclusion for underserved segments, over 60 per cent of Ignite by Igloo’s intermediary partners are female.

Another innovation for Igloo is its Weather Index Insurance, a pioneering blockchain-based parametric insurance for farmers. The product has drawn interest from partners in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia for its potential to greatly benefit the agricultural sector. Despite its novelty in a highly traditional sector, Weather Index Insurance has already been adopted by thousands of farmers since launching last November and covers 20,000 hectares of coffee and padi farms.

Igloo has facilitated over 500 million policies and aims to double its Gross Written Premium (GWP) from 2022. As of today, it has also actively established over 75 partnerships across six countries, expanding its product offerings to cover consumer finance, e-commerce, and logistics. In August 2023, Igloo was named ‘Insurtech of the Year’ by the Asia Fintech Awards.

The new funding will go towards both horizontal and vertical M&A opportunities – having added intermediary licenses across SEA this year, in addition to its license in Indonesia. It will also increase its workforce by 20% across engineering, commercial, strategy and insurance-focused verticals. On the product and value chain enhancement aspect, it looks to double down on motor, health, climate-related products, underwriting and claims digitization and AI and blockchain technologies.

Raunak Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO at Igloo, shared, “The support from our investors is a testament to Igloo’s steady growth and resilience amidst macro headwinds and a validation of our strategy. We are the only insurtech in Southeast Asia with a robust profit and loss (P&L) statement, a diverse multi-product portfolio, and an extensive distribution line.”

About Eurazeo

Eurazeo is a leading global investment group, with a diversified portfolio of €35.2 billion in Assets Under Management, including €25 billion from third parties, invested in around 600 companies. With its considerable private equity, private debt, real estate asset and infrastructure expertise, Eurazeo accompanies companies of all sizes, supporting their development through the commitment of its 400+ professionals and by offering deep sector expertise, a gateway to global markets, and a responsible and stable foothold for transformational growth. Its solid institutional and family shareholder base, robust financial structure free of structural debt, and flexible investment horizon enable Eurazeo to support its companies over the long term. Eurazeo has offices in Paris, New York, London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Milan, Madrid, Luxembourg, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore and Sao Paulo. Eurazeo is listed on Euronext Paris.

About Openspace

Openspace is a leading Southeast Asian venture capital firm, finding and backing companies creating a transformative impact where tech meets life. It has 6 funds with $800M in committed capital and has 39 dedicated employees, including full-time specialists within the Portfolio Success team. It is co-headquartered in Singapore and Jakarta, with active offices in Bangkok, Manila and Ho Chi Minh City. Its portfolio of 40+ companies includes GoTo, Pick Up Coffee, Halodoc, Kredivo Holdings. www.openspace.vc

About Igloo

Igloo is a regional full-stack insurtech firm headquartered in Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and tech centres in China and India. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimise and enhance existing products and services. It has partnered with over 75 well-known brand names across the markets in various verticals, including insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, hospitality, health tech and financial services. Recognised by the industry for its innovations and expertise in its space, Igloo was named ‘Insurtech of the Year’ in the 2023 Asia Fintech Awards. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com/.

For Media Enquiries
PRecious Communications for Igloo,
igloo@preciouscomms.com

Regional Insurtech Igloo extends footprint in Malaysia with Pine Labs partnership and appointment of Country Head

Igloo signs key partnership with Pine Labs to offer affordable Phone Screen Protection and Mobile 360 protection to its platform users
Newly-appointed industry veteran, Amitabh Singh, to lead growth in Malaysia
Igloo to expand team in Malaysia, making key hires across Business Development, Operations, Customer Service & Sales Management

Regional insurtech firm Igloo today announced a new partnership with digital payments service provider, Pine Labs, marking the extension of its regional footprint in Malaysia. Pine Labs is currently used by over 246,000 merchants in 3700 cities and towns across India and Malaysia. The partnership comes on the heels of its appointment of Amitabh Singh as Country Manager, Malaysia.

Through the partnership, Pine Labs will offer shoppers hassle-free and easy mobile phone protection solutions under the IglooCare Program. Mobile Phone 360 and Phone Screen Protection are currently available on Pine Labs’ platform. The protection covers both repair and replacement of the gadget by up to 100% of the gadget retail price, offered through Igloo’s dedicated nationwide IglooCare repair and service network in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, as part of Igloo’s plan to extend its presence in Malaysia, the company appointedAmitabh Singh, as Country Manager for Igloo, Malaysia. He will be responsible for Igloo’s overall country operations across business development, partnerships, marketing and operations. With nearly two decades of experience in financial services, he has held several leadership roles across Southeast Asia.

In addition, Igloo is expanding its team in Malaysia and making key hires across Business Development, Operations, Customer service & Sales management.

According to Amitabh, the partnership marks a significant milestone in Igloo’s expansion in Malaysia. “We are happy to partner with Pine Labs to offer our best-in-class IglooCare phone protection solutions. Igloo aims to work with more local partners to provide protection platform solutions that are easy to purchase, affordable, and directly impact consumers’ daily lives. These lifestyle-focused solutions allow consumers to experience minimal disruption and financial loss to their daily lives – across multiple categories including Electronics & Durables, Health Benefits products, Lifestyle coverage and SME solutions – all of which are enabled through our technology platform,” he added.

“Pine Labs has been at the forefront of technology in the payments solutions space across India and Southeast Asia. In Malaysia we are expanding our footprint rapidly by entering into strategic alliances with leading banks and retail brands. We are very happy to be partnering with technology platform like Igloo to enable us to expand protection offerings to our merchants. At Pine Labs, we are always striving to get the best products and services for our merchant partners and we find Igloo provides us the best platform in terms of options and roll out flexibility,” said Chayan Hazra, Head of Payment Business – APAC for Pine Labs.

This year, Igloo has established over 30 key partnerships in diverse industries to make protection products more accessible across the region. In July, the insurtech company partnered with regional leading food delivery platformfoodpanda Singapore to launch protection solutions for gig economy workers. In September, Igloo successfully launched partnerships with leading e-Wallet platforms in the PhilippinesGCash andDANA in Indonesia to provide online shopping protection (PH) and phone screen protection (ID) respectively. Last month, Igloo partnered its first Digital Health brand, HD, to provide health-related micro-insurance products via the HDmall healthcare marketplace platform in Thailand. The company also boasts several award wins this year, namely “Most Innovative InsurTech Company”, “2021 Inclusive Fintech 50” and “Insurtech Initiative of the Year – Singapore”.

Amitabh Singh’s profile can be found here.

About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.

Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com

About Pine Labs
A leading merchant commerce platform, Pine Labs serves prominent large, mid-sized and small merchants across India and Southeast Asia. The company’s unique cloud-based platform enables it to offer a wide range of payment acceptance and merchant commerce solutions including enterprise automation systems such as inventory management and customer relationship management. Its stored value platform includes issuing, processing, and distributing digital gift cards for corporate customers around the world. In April 2021, Pine Labs acquired Fave, a consumer fintech platform that provides a smart payment app to the smart generation of consumers looking to pay and save. Fave is currently operational in 35 cities across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia and is also available in India. Incorporated in Singapore, Pine Labs’ key investors include Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard. To know more, please visit www.pinelabs.my

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Regional insurtech Igloo and HD, the region’s only D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace, announce partnership to launch insurance products on HDmall

Strategic partnership marks Igloo’s first partnership with Digital Health brand
Offers HD’s over 6 million users digital convenience for medical, hospitalisation, cancer and personal accident insurance
Taps on the growth potential of the general insurance market in Thailand which was estimated around 4 billion in 2020, and expected to grow to USD10.6 billion in 2025
Direct-to-consumer health insurance distribution opportunities buoyed by Millenial and Gen Z digital-first consumers who rely less on traditional employer-based health insurance, according to research by AVIA Health and Accenture

Regional insurtech company Igloo has teamed up with HD to provide health-related micro-insurance products via the HDmall healthcare marketplace platform in Thailand. Muang Thai Insurance (MTI), one of Thailand’s leading non-life insurance companies, will be underwriting the health insurance products such as cancer and mobile syndrome insurance, among others.

HD is a D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace in emerging Southeast Asia. HD leverages ecommerce technology to connect direct-pay patients to hospitals and healthcare SMEs, with the mission to bring affordable healthcare to the ‘99%’. The healthtech startup has grown its users to 6 million and recently sold over 10,000 Moderna vaccines within 12 hours via the HDmall platform.

“Igloo’s tech capabilities and insurance expertise will join our portfolio of ecommerce technologies that empower direct-pay healthcare including credit card installment payments and buy-now-pay-later solutions that have already enabled people to pay for high-ticket healthcare procedures such as In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), Cesarean Delivery (C-Section), and Lasik; dental-related products such as Clear Aligners and Invisalign; as well as medical aesthetics-related procedures” said Sheji Ho, CEO and Co-Founder of HD.

“We are happy to partner with HD, our first digital health partner on top of industries such as ecommerce, travel, telecommunications, logistics to delivery space. Together, we aim to create an insurance customer journey that meets the needs of today’s digital consumers, especially in Southeast Asia and in Thailand where technology has become more and more a part of our daily lives. HD’s healthcare marketplace and unique access to Millennial and Gen Z patients is the perfect fit for us to implement our technology of digital insurance that is relevant in today’s world. Igloo will continue to look at expanding its partnership in the digital health space across the SEA region,” said Raunak Mehta, Chief Commercial Officer, Igloo.

Across emerging Southeast Asia, 40% of healthcare expenditure is paid out of pocket (compared to 10% in the US). With the rise of the ‘Creator Economy’ and popularity of fractional trading apps like Robinhood – both of which were accelerated through the Covid pandemic – an increasing number of Millennial and Gen Z consumers are looking for more control over their healthcare consumption and expenditure. Unlike their parents’ generation, these digital-first consumers are less and less likely to be tied to traditional employer-based health insurance. This is based on recent findings by AVIA Health, a healthcare digital transformation consultancy, as well as Accenture’s Digital Health Consumer Survey.

“We see Igloo’s innovative micro health insurance technologies as a perfect complement to our focus on unlocking the $24 billion direct-pay healthcare opportunity in emerging Southeast Asia. With only 0.06% health insurance penetration (gross written premiums out of GDP), we need to take an out-of-the-box approach to empower patients in Thailand to finance healthcare,” added Sheji.

Igloo’s technologies will be integrated into HD and applied to both self-checkout and conversational commerce on the HDmall direct-pay healthcare marketplace platform to ensure the best possible user experience.

“We’re excited about partnering with both Igloo and HD, the latter marking our first collaboration with a healthtech startup. This strategic initiative will enable Muang Thai Insurance to distribute our micro-insurance products direct-to-consumer at scale and expand to a vast majority of customers digitally while leveraging Igloo’s machine learning and HD’s healthcare targeting and segmentation,” said Mrs. Nualphan Lamsam, President and Chief Executive Officer of Muang Thai Insurance PCL.

Partnership image is available for download here.
https://preciouscomms.box.com/s/jp4alg2s52kji7bnw7okaq62368jsugr

About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.

Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com

About HD
HD is a D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace in emerging Southeast Asia. HD leverages ecommerce technology to connect direct-pay patients to hospitals and healthcare SMEs, with the mission to bring affordable healthcare to the ‘99%’. Direct-pay health shoppers on the HD marketplace access a range of affordable services including consumer healthcare, online pharmacy / telepharmacy, and telehealth, while healthcare providers benefit from HD’s suite of healthcare marketing solutions. With an average of 40% of healthcare expenditure being paid out of pocket in our region, we believe our ‘JD Health for SEA’ + ‘Shopify for Healthcare’ approach is key to fixing healthcare for a $24 billion direct-pay market. HD is currently available to users in both Thailand and Indonesia, with Vietnam launching in 2022.

About Muang Thai Insurance (MTI)
Founded in 1932 and currently one of Thailand’s top 5 leading non-life insurance companies under the leadership of Mrs. Nualphan Lamsam, President and Chief Executive Officer. Muang Thai Insurance PCL (MTI) has been expanding businesses continuously through various progressions including insurance product development and social development matching with the current global social situation. MTI’s main products include fire insurance, marine insurance, motor insurance, and miscellaneous insurance. The company has launched many digital platforms to reach out and provide new services to satisfy all needs of all customers.

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Regional insurtech Igloo named among “2021 Inclusive Fintech 50”

Igloo has been named amongst the ‘2021 Inclusive Fintech 50’ – from nearly 300 eligible applications globally
In August 2021, it also won ‘Insurtech Initiative of the Year’ at the 6th Insurance Asia Awards for its innovative solution with PhilPacific Insurance Brokers & Inc
In 2021, Igloo has established over 15 key partnerships in diverse verticals to strengthen its footprint across the region, including leading food delivery and mobile wallet platforms in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The company aims to strengthen its foothold in Southeast Asia through more strategic partnerships by the end of this year.

Regional insurtech, Igloo, was named as one of the winners of the 2021 Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) competition, an annual competition hosted by The Center for Financial Inclusion. In its 3rd year, IF50 recognises early-stage Fintechs that are helping low-income customers and micro and small enterprises who are affected by the pandemic and help them rebound, rebuild and recover.

Igloo’s partnerships with foodpanda in Singapore and Thailand reflect this – in the midst of the Covid-19, Igloo and foodpanda saw a need to provide food delivery riders and their families with a peace of mind as they travel the roads to meet heightened demand from Covid-19 dining restrictions.

Last year, Igloo partnered with foodpanda Thailand to introduce an insurance programme that provides free Covid-19 protection for delivery riders in Thailand. In Singapore this year, Igloo introduced PandaCare, a fuss-free and wallet-friendly insurance coverage for delivery riders. PandaCare is specifically designed for gig economy workers and encompasses six benefits: Accidental Death, Accidental Medical Expenses, Accidental Mobile Phone Screen Damage, Daily Hospital Cash, Permanent Total/Partial, Disablement and Temporary Disablement. These benefits also extend to their immediate family members.

In August 2021, Igloo also won ‘Insurtech Initiative of the Year’ at the 6th Insurance Asia Awards. The award recognises Igloo’s partnership with PhilPacific Insurance Brokers & Inc (Philinsure) in digitalising PhilInsure’s insurance products. This initiative aims to push digitalisation efforts to protect Filipinos and their family members against unpredictable risks such as natural catastrophes like typhoons, flooding, and earthquakes and of course, health risks, including Covid-19.

“We are honoured to be part of the Inclusive Fintech 50. Understanding the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has exerted on the industries, business models, and people’s lives, we at Igloo have accelerated technology and digital transformation to help bring support and peace of mind to people during these uncertain times. This achievement is also a validation of our mission to make insurance more accessible in Southeast Asia,” said Raunak Mehta, Chief Commercial Officer of Igloo.

This year, Igloo has established over 15 key partnerships in diverse industries to make insurance more accessible across the region. In July, the insurtech company partnered with regional leading food delivery platform foodpanda Singapore to launch the insurance product for gig economy workers. In September, Igloo successfully launched partnerships with leading e-Wallet platforms in the Philippines GCash and DANA in Indonesia to provide online shopping insurance product (PH) and phone screen protection insurance product (ID). The company aims to launch more strategic collaborations with partners in different industries ranging across e-commerce, lifestyle, and health tech by the end of this year.

About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.

Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com

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igloo@preciouscomms.com

GCash Introduces First of Its Kind, Online Shopping Protection with Regional Insurtech Firm, Igloo

The first of its kind Online Shopping Insurance protection by GCash, in partnership with Igloo, aims to offer peace of mind for 46 million GCash users when they transact using GCash
Approximately 44% of digital consumers have been a target of a fraud scheme in Q1 2021

Philippines’ leading e-wallet provider GCash, has launched an online shopping insurance – underwritten by PGA Sompo – with Singapore-headquartered regional insurtech Igloo, to protect its growing online customer base. This launch and partnership come at a time where GCash has seen a surge in online transactions and is on track to hit PHP 3 trillion in full-year gross transactions – 3x of last year’s performance. This was driven by Filipino consumers shifting to online for their daily needs.

Igloo’s online shopping protection via GCash’s platform

Today, there is an increasing demand to go cashless and more merchants and retailers are opting for the convenience of e-commerce, and express peer-to-peer cash transfers.

Over 70% of Southeast Asia is online and last year, the region saw 40 million new users join the internet. In a recent survey, the Philippines alone saw 37% of all digital service consumers are new to the service due to COVID-19. The survey also shows 97% of these new digital consumers will continue to use digital services going forward. This has led to an increasing need to be able to secure each transaction. Through this partnership with Igloo, GCash aims to provide peace of mind to its 46 million users while they shop online. The GCash app also had over 13 million log-ins per day, peaking at almost 15 million in the second quarter of 2021. This year, GCash aims to reach its PHP 3 trillion Gross Transaction Value (GTV) target and currently processes an average of PHP 300 billion in monthly transactions.

“This comes at an unprecedented time when we see robust growth in our online transactions and user base. With excellent customer experience being the heart of our business alongside value-added services through our platform, we are thrilled to launch this new product with Igloo that secures online transactions for our customers,” said Martha Sazon, GCash President and CEO.

“We are excited to partner with the leading e-wallet in the country, GCash – who shares the same vision of protecting digital consumers by pioneering innovative solutions to end-customers at an economical price. With the growing number of digital consumers in the country, now more than ever, is it most important to provide flexible solutions for the changing needs and processes of both businesses and customers. In a recent survey, 44% of the respondents had been a target of a fraud scheme. The majority of them, or 44% and 39% are experienced by Gen Z and Millennials, respectively. With many GCash customers belonging to this bracket, Igloo’s protection is not only timely but very relevant to GCash customers’ needs,” said Mario Berta, Igloo Philippines Country Manager.

The Online Shopping protection is one of the first products Igloo will be launching with GCash and its customers but will soon be rolling out more products with the e-wallet platform in the next six months that will be geared towards MSMEs which are about 90% of the businesses in the Philippines, securing the entire ecosystem of both seller-business owner-and-buyer.

Igloo’s Online Shopping product is part of its Cyber Protection vertical, which secures financial loss arising directly from any online marketplace fraud. With its pioneering partner, GCash – GCash users will now be protected from any transaction they make via online marketplaces such as Lazada, Shopee, including Viber and Facebook marketplaces as long as their payment was fulfilled via the GCash platform.

Since its entry into the Philippines with its collaboration with Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest-growing hotel management and booking platform, RedDoorz in 2019, Igloo has also partnered with the Union Bank of the Philippines in August last year and Philinsure early 2021. The insurtech has also widened its insurance partner base to include Mercantile, Pioneer, PGA-Sompo Insurance Corporation, and United Coconut Planters Life Assurance Corporation.

Images in high resolution are available for download here.

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