UBX’s embedded insurance platform aims to simplify the insurance experience for all its users
UBX PH, the fintech arm of Unionbank, aims to make insurance a simpler, more pleasant, seamless experience.
In a country where only 3% of the population is insured, and where there is still a great majority of people that are unbanked or underbanked, UBX’s goal is to do away with the barriers that prevent users from getting the protection they need.
What are some of the barriers to insurance? UBX President and CEO John Januszczak mentioned at least 3 factors.
First, he said that it’s not easy for most to have even a basic understanding of how valuable insurance can be for them, which is why it’s important for providers to make it easier to discover.
Second, insurance products can be very challenging to understand. “Products are often too complicated, predicated on old sales models with corresponding jargon that inevitably develops over the years. “Often, what is sold is in many cases essentially the same kind of product that my own parents bought over 50 years ago. What is equally concerning is the sub-optimal impact that the complexity has not just on customers, but conventionally, on insurance agents and advisors” Januszczak said.
Third, there are also problems related to distribution. According to Januszczak, there are limitations on the traditional intermediaries such as agents, brokers, and bank partners who have limited reach without the use of digital means.
These factors can now be addressed through UBX’s embeddable insurance platform, Assured, which, according to UBX’s website, “virtualizes insurance packaging and experience by delivering multiple protection products from multiple insurance carriers through multiple channels.” Insurtech company Coherent is a partner of UBX in Assured. Global insurance giant Chubb acts as underwriter.
Assured allows several insurance providers to break up their often-complicated insurance policies into bite-sized chunks of insurance coverage and offer these in a more accessible way to even more people through a digital platform. Since most people now transact using apps, they can be offered specific coverages from within the app, for just a few pesos. Insurance providers can now reach more people who before, were probably not able to get insurance because of the complexities of their policies or could not afford the high price of premiums. UBX also aims to provide a single platform and a single API to make it easier for solutions developers and communities to aggregate and customize protection across multiple insurance
providers.
One of Assured‘s pilot channels available now is i2i , a payments and open finance network. Customers of the hundreds of financial institutions and service providers using i2i can now enjoy UBX Bills Payment Group Personal Accident Insurance underwritten by global insurance giant Chubb as a value-added protection feature when paying their bills via the platform. This insurance provides 30 days of coverage for accidental death and permanent total disablement. Customers are entitled to a lump sum benefit of up to 3 years or 36 times the enrolled monthly bill amount.
This i2i insurance coverage ensures that if something happens to the insured during the coverage period, the insured’s beneficiaries can claim insurance proceeds up to a certain multiplier factor of whatever the enrolled monthly bill’s amount is.
Coherent CEO John Brisco says “If UBX is trying to think about the experience of the user, Chubb is providing world-class products to fit into that experience, and then Coherent is bringing the technology to enable that to happen, and I think that’s a very unique proposition which doesn’t really exist across many markets in the world”.
