Oona Insurance's Southeast Asian Expansion powered by HyperVerge

Introduction

Oona Insurance, founded in 2022 with US $350 million in funding from a prominent private equity firm, Warburg Pincus, caters to the insurance needs of Southeast Asian markets, specifically the Philippines and Indonesia. Dedicated to becoming the most customer-driven provider of general insurance in Southeast Asia, Oona Insurance intends to establish its presence and capitalize on the significant growth opportunities presented by the underpenetrated general insurance market in all the key markets of South East Asia.

It is committed to embracing digital innovation to better serve its customers and stay ahead in the competitive insurance market. With a focus on expanding its product portfolio to include new-age lines such as health insurance, flight delay insurance, comprehensive travel protection and emerging solutions driven by the rise of e-commerce platforms, and digital payments, Oona Insurance is poised for growth and advancement in the industry. As a new entrant in the market, Oona Insurance aimed to disrupt the traditional insurance sector by enabling instant policy issuance and claims processing through digital channels. The Oona Insurance group aims to become the general insurer of choice for both partners and customers, leveraging the pillars of superior customer service, advanced technology, and a well-established brand.

Challenges Faced

Oona Insurance identified several key challenges in the Southeast Asian insurance market, including low penetration rates (1-2%), complex and outdated product offerings, lack of customer focus, and a lack of trust among consumers. The traditional product-centric “push model” failed to address evolving risks and preferences, hindering customer engagement. Additionally, complex and time-consuming claim processes led to frustration and dissatisfaction with insurance services.

However, a key challenge faced by Oona Insurance was the cumbersome customer onboarding process. Long application forms, extensive documentation requirements, and manual verification steps resulted in high dropout rates during signup. Oona Insurance needed to streamline onboarding to provide a seamless customer experience.

Oona Insurance’s priority was to transform legacy manual processes into digital platforms and provide seamless customer journeys. Specific Key pain points included:

• High drop-off rate during form filling due to the lengthy information required like National ID and policy documents. Over 50% of users abandoned applications halfway.
• Delays: Manual identity checks and document verification processes were time-consuming, leading to delays of 3-5 days before policy activation, which significantly impacted customer satisfaction.

To achieve their target of 50% digital policy issuance and retention of 80% of applicants, Oona Insurance needed to digitise and automate onboarding.

Solution Implementation

To solve this, Oona Insurance partnered with HyperVerge in Q1 2022 to integrate their customer onboarding suite into Oona Insurance’s portal and mobile apps. The key components implemented were:

• ID Document OCR: Extracts information automatically from identity documents like national IDs submitted by applicants and prefilling forms.
• Face Authentication: Matches applicant selfies to ID photos for identity proofing. Prevents impersonation risks.
• Policy Document OCR: Data from documents like insurance certificates scanned by applicants were automatically populated, and manual entry was removed.

HyperVerge’s OCR technology was also applied to extracting data from OR/CR (Official Receipt and Certificate of Registration) documents specific to the Philippines motor insurance market. These documents contain important information like the vehicle’s chassis number that previously had to be manually entered during the application process.

By leveraging HyperVerge’s advanced OCR, Oona Insurance can now automatically scan and extract relevant data from OR/CR documents submitted by applicants. This eliminates the need for tedious manual data entry, further streamlining the onboarding workflow.

We have not seen any other company in the Philippines using OCR for OR/CR documents yet. By working with HyperVerge to scan and extract data from these documents, we will be pioneering an innovative solution that reduces friction for our customers purchasing motor insurance policies.

Normie Ortiga

Chief Information Officer, Oona Insurance Philippines

• Document Tampering and Fraud Checks: Real-time checks on ID quality and fraud check to detect fraudulent applications.

HyperVerge’s low-code interface, complete with OCR, liveness detection, and face-matching capabilities simplified the integration and scaled Oona Insurance’s onboarding. The onboarding workflow was designed by Oona Insurance’s product team and implemented by HyperVerge within 2 months through SDKs. The existing tech stack was leveraged to minimise integration efforts.

The biggest benefit, Normie Ortiga, the Chief Information Officer of Oona Insurance Philippines, cited was how quickly HyperVerge implemented technology like OCR, sometimes before expected timelines to help Oona Insurance meet their digital transformation goals.

Working with the HyperVerge team has been an exceptional experience. They are incredibly intelligent and technically proficient individuals. Despite facing a tight deadline, we needed to implement OCR and integrate it with our platform swiftly. The team at HyperVerge delivered outstanding results within the short timeframe we had, allowing us to successfully implement our D2C 1.0 platform.

Normie Ortiga

Chief Information Officer, Oona Insurance Philippines

Our partnership with HyperVerge has been instrumental in our journey towards becoming Southeast Asia’s leading insurance provider. Their innovative technology has enabled us to streamline operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the competition.

Sourabh Chatterjee

Group Chief Technology Officer, Oona Insurance Group

Impact and Results

With HyperVerge, Oona Insurance reduced application processing time from 20 minutes to under 5 minutes through automated form filling using OCR. Customer onboarding time also dropped from 3-5 days to less than a day by streamlining the onboarding process.

The integration of HyperVerge’s technology has yielded significant positive outcomes for Oona Insurance:

• Digitising the Onboarding Journey: By digitising the onboarding journey using HyperVerge’s technology, Oona Insurance has reduced processing times and improved accuracy, leading to increased customer satisfaction.
• Enhanced Risk Assessment: HyperVerge’s AI-driven risk assessment tools enable Oona Insurance to better evaluate risks, resulting in more accurate underwriting decisions and improved portfolio management.
• Improved Customer Experience: The seamless integration of technology has transformed the overall customer experience, making it easier and more convenient for customers to purchase insurance, file claims, and access support services.

HyperVerge’s IDV solutions enabled us to digitise onboarding end-to-end. The integration was smooth, and their OCR technology is the most accurate in extracting Philippine national IDs and policy documents. By removing friction during signups, we have been able to provide a seamless experience to our customers.

Normie Ortiga

Chief Information Officer, Oona Insurance Philippines

With HyperVerge’s solutions, Oona Insurance was able to:

• Cut manual verification to less than a day through instant identity checks, improving activation rates by 40%.
• Reduce application completion time by 70% by pre-filling forms using OCR.
• Identify more fraudulent applicants via AI-based fraud checks. Saved future claim costs.
• Data errors decreased by 90% as information extracted through OCR had a brilliant accuracy.

The results aligned with Oona Insurance’s digital transformation goal by minimising paperwork and human oversight during onboarding. Overall, HyperVerge was crucial for Oona Insurance to offer digital insurance products by simplifying customer onboarding.

Working with Hyperverge has been a fantastic experience. They are attentive listeners who provide alternative solutions, making the collaboration smooth and efficient.

Normie Ortiga

Chief Information Officer, Oona Insurance Philippines

Future Plans

After seeing results during onboarding, Oona Insurance now wants to expand HyperVerge’s OCR and AI to automate claims processing by extracting data from paperwork and auto-adjudicate eligible claims. The success so far has opened up additional use cases beyond onboarding.

This will further enhance customer experience and reduce operational costs for Oona Insurance. The company aims to leverage its partnership with HyperVerge to launch new products and services, driving continued growth and success in the dynamic Indonesian and Philippines markets.

Looking ahead, Oona Insurance Group plans to expand its partnership with HyperVerge and extend the usage of its technology to additional Southeast Asian markets, including Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. With a focus on customer-centricity, they aim to continue innovating and transforming the insurance landscape in the region.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Oona Insurance was able to reinvent policy purchase and issuance for the digital era by integrating HyperVerge’s onboarding solutions. Automating data extraction and verification resulted in faster signups, lower dropoff rates, and higher applicant conversion. The partnership has paved the path for Oona Insurance’s wider business digital transformation.