In this article, Evan Tanotogono from Rey Assurance shares his company’s journey to becoming a top health insurance solution provider.
We’ll cover:
- Q: What is great about Rey. id? What is the pitch if someone wants to join it?
- Q: How can people claim their insurance? How can we improve this aspect in the health insurance marketplace?
- Q: How did you get started, and where’s the company standing now?
- Q: Who is the ideal target customer for this type of service?
- Q: What is the alternative to Rey that people are doing now?
- Q: Which of those two do you think is going to be your core focus? Families or enterprises?
- Q: Is it a 50-50 or 70-30 ratio between direct consumers and SMEs? How would you predict that?
- Q: How are you providing value and attracting consumers?
- Q: Does Rey reward or give discounts to people who are doing good at the Rey app?
- Q: What is your business model? How do you make people join?
Q: What is great about Rey. id? What is the pitch if someone wants to join it?
In a sentence, Rey is a dedicated health life and critical illness insurance tech company. The differentiator between Rey and other insurtechs in the market is that other insurances are taking the role of a distribution channel, but Rey is trying to do something different.
We’re taking a role in challenging the status quo of an entire insurance carrier as a whole. We will be a new secret or a new prudential or the insurance company starting from day one. We can start thinking about digital-first products, digital-first services, and digital-first processes.
We use technology to bring experience to health insurance plans. It doesn’t make sense for us to just go into the market and then try to digitize one part of the value chain, like just selling the product and being transactional.
Rather, we dedicate ourselves to specific verticals: health, life, and critical illness. We make an end-to-end vertical integration right from the selling and because of its health as a core. We want to get people on the right path of healthcare in the most efficient way possible to get health coverage with technology.
Q: How can people claim their insurance? How can we improve this aspect in the health insurance marketplace?
You know, health insurance and life insurance are a product of trust. It’s also a product of service, and it’s also a product of risk. So we cannot be just transactional here because it’s not a product that you purchase and forget.
Health care insurance is a product you purchase because you trust your life or financial decisions on it and offer the next months or years. You will need to expect this product to take care of you and make your life improve.
So we need to make you comfortable, take care of yourself, and make you healthy. As again, it’s a product of risk, so we are trying to optimize and control the risk by making poor people healthier.
Q: How did you get started, and where’s the company standing now?
We gathered around in April/ May, and then we started building in May. We launched our prototype at the end of September. We’re looking to launch our prototype in q1 next year.
The product is proprietarily designed for us that is also connected and integrated with our health care processors.
Rey was started by a couple of people that are experienced and know the pain points of the health care and insurance industry, but we are not the guys who like insurance.
To be honest, we hate insurance the way it’s done today in Indonesia. We believe that somebody needs to disrupt that, and now we have launched our prototype running for two months in the market.
Q: Who is the ideal target customer for this type of service?
Our target customers are 120 million people in the middle part of the pyramid. Because we saw that people on the top of the pyramid have private health insurance, and that’s why in Indonesia, only a couple of private health insurance have good services, but at the same time, the price is a bit high.
People in the grassroots population have public insurance, so they have to be happy with that. But, we see that in the middle of the pyramid, people in the upper-middle or lower affluent class have buying power, they understand financial needs, and they transact digitally, but somehow they choose to be uninsured.
Because they feel that we don’t have to spend too much on health insurance, we also don’t want to start with the public (government) insurance with all of the services.
We are trying to target two areas one is individuals and families and another one is SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). This is also another area because we are getting this middle part of the pyramid through SMEs.
These companies even provide complimentary insurance, but they also don’t get the best value for the money that they spend. Because some of the products are a bit too expensive and don’t allow them to subscribe at all, they do not offer a complete health plan to the insurers.
Q: What is the alternative to Rey that people are doing now?
Some people choose to purchase private insurance because they feel that they will spend more money on their health plans. But, we find that some of the reasons are not because they trust that insurance service and understand the insurance products but because they just trust their friends who become the agent.
They go upward and try to purchase private health insurance. While some people are okay paying the public insurance but they just feel that the service is not there.
Some of the people get complimentary insurance from the company, and they feel that it’s enough for them even though most people are choosing to be uninsured and losing health care coverage.
Q: Which of those two do you think is going to be your core focus? Families or enterprises?
We are focusing on both, and I think the core of us is direct marketing. So we do direct digital marketing to customers and enterprises. Because we are seeing that SEMs are also now moving into a direct purchase to get better health care plans.
They just Google it and then try to find something good with maximum health plan benefits for them and then try to make a direct purchase. While the individual has been using that direct digital purchase for many years.
Q: Is it a 50-50 or 70-30 ratio between direct consumers and SMEs? How would you predict that?
To be honest, right now, I don’t have clear visibility yet, but I think we were trying to do both, and again you know, it’s based on my limited experience with cypress.
So based on my limited experience, we find that we are just like a unified digital campaign and just showing our products, etc. We can grab the attention of many SME buyers and individual buyers at the same time.
Q: How are you providing value and attracting consumers?
In our view, wellness is a medium to a long-term goal. It means when you live healthier, it’s not that you know you become healthy at once. When you do this as a habit, then you will have a lower health risk in the future.
Research has already shown that if people are living healthier and have better metrics. For example, a person with lower fat, normal sugar level, normal blood pressure, and a normal BMI will have lower chances of getting NCDs. He will have a lower chance of getting admitted to the hospital.
Even though he gets admitted to the hospitals, he will spend fewer days, will get few health care services, and fewer costs as well.
So this is something that I think impacts the proposition of the product because when we take this into account, we integrate this with how the product is designed, and the insurance product can be an affordable health product.
Q: Does Rey reward or give discounts to people who are doing good at the Rey app?
They can get reward points, and they can exchange them with tangible rewards. They can go with wallet money, and then they can get shopping vouchers, but also they can get a discount on the premium.
So it’s based on how you want to redeem the points, but basically, the healthier you are, the more points that you get.
Q: What is your business model? How do you make people join?
We try to be as frank as possible. We have seen in the market that people are just doing lifestyle apps and things, and then they try to cross all insurance, but Rey is trying to be different.
We want to be as friendly as possible, bringing insurance to the people. So at the front, we already said that we sell insurance now with the blocks and contents.
We still use it, and I purely believe that it is something that is the driver of insurance sales. Insurance is a difficult product to sell, and we need to understand that.
There are a couple of things that you need to realize. One is you need to realize that the funnel of purchasing insurance is long and complicated in terms of the transaction process. There is a lot of data that people need to fill in and some sensitive data as well.
Second, we understand that the willingness to purchase is different for every person, regardless of their income. So it’s not linear on how much you make versus how much you want to pay for insurance and numbers.
Every individual has a different driver, and this is where content is really important. It’s not only the content, but we need to have some proper analytics to understand. This is the content that each stranger visitor is trying to consume.
When people start coming in based on the content that he or she reaches, then we can understand that, okay, this is the guy or the girl who is concerned about his or her health. That’s why we can try to push something that matches her or his preference.
