Insurtech Talent Development in Hong Kong – From Insurance to Insurtech: Strategies for Building a Sustainable Talent Pipeline

12 From Insurance to Insurtech: Strategies for Building a Sustainable Talent Pipeline IA’s Three-Pronged Strategy To tackle the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic and explore avenues for better serving insurance clients, the IA encouraged the insurance industry’s application of insurtech through a three-pronged strategy: Temporary Facilitative Measures during the Pandemic First, the IA implemented temporary facilitative measures in early 2020 through which Hong Kong’s residents were able to purchase specific insurance products such as Qualifying Deferred Annuity Policy (QDAP), Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS), and refundable policies without a substantial savings component. These products were made available via non-face-to-face means such as websites, post offices and telemarketing with the intention to reduce infection risks from face-to-face interactions. Temporary facilitative measures were valid till September 30 th , 2022. Measures to protect the interests of existing and potential policy holders were also executed. These included upfront disclosures by insurers at the point of sales and extended cooling-off periods of no less than thirty days for the policy holders to seek any professional advice if they required it. Insurtech Trials for Non-Face-to-Face Distribution Channels Second, the IA promoted insurtech trials by the industry through Insurtech Sandbox for facilitating policy holders in their purchases of appropriate insurance products safely through non-face-to-face channels. The interests of the policy holders were protected by the IA through a set of regulatory requirements for virtual onboarding via video conferences. This was used especially for intermediaries who were required to conduct end-to-end video or audio recordings of the whole video conference – a very interesting use of insurtech. Shared Virtual Onboarding Platform Third, the IA encouraged the industry to establish a shared virtual onboarding platform for usage by different insurers, particularly those that did not have the requisite resources to build their own platforms. The goal of this platformwas to help introduce healthy competition and promote diverse financial services in Hong Kong. Launching of the industry’s first virtual onboarding platform was announced by the HKFI in September 2020. I II III