Tune Protect leads the way in cloud-powered insurance services

Tune Protect’s Prasanta Roy tackles digitalisation and overcoming regulatory challenges for efficient, scalable, and secure services at 2023 Insurance Asia Forum.

Conventional wisdom dictates that developing industries endeavour to modernise their systems whilst retaining the human touch as a fundamental attribute.

This is particularly true in the insurance scene, where companies like Tune Protect Group in Malaysia have evolved from providing coverage to becoming an insurance provider committed to delivering efficient, scalable, and secure services.

Prasanta Roy, Tune Protect’s group chief technology officer, graced the stage at the 2023 Insurance Asia Forum in Kuala Lumpur last 24 May to weigh in on the vital role of digitalisation in the midst of regulatory challenges.

“There are regulatory hurdles – we are no different,” he told fellow insurance experts as he discussed challenges in the technology stack not just for insurers but various industries.

Hurdles for Asian insurers
Roy tackled the six common concerns in the industry that can be addressed by new insurance technologies, enumerating them as follows:

• Lack of agility in terms of patchwork to point solutions
• Legacy software not being cloud-ready
• Presence of cultural barriers
• Contending with a closed stack
• Absence of personalisation
• Limited options for innovation

From Tune Protect’s perspective, Roy said technology is the common solution for all these, given that their key design principles are as follows:

• API certification first for customers and partners
• Open scalable digital architecture
• Agility in new product and service creation
• Platform play: Co-create and attract new revenue streams
• Omnichannel ready:  Ingest any channel
• Modularised and decoupled businesses selling to businesses (B2B) and B2B2C, which is blending B2B with businesses selling to consumers

Sound and simplified
As a protection platform business, Tune Protect's services include reinsurance, retakaful (the Islamic equivalent of conventional reinsurance), general insurance, digital life insurance, and lifestyle insurance.

As of 2022, the Malaysia-headquartered insurer has serviced 11.2 million travel policies from its platform. It also holds 73 various affinities and digital partners across a number of sectors.

To guide its business, Tune Protect upholds the “3-3-3 mantra.”

“What does it mean? You can buy any product with full protection in three minutes. If you have any issues, we’ll come back to you in three hours. And we’ll give you a claim in three days. Find any insurer in the market who is coming and talking about this goal. But this is our stated reason, which we have told our investors,” Roy explained at the forum.

Tune Protect also works with underwriters in 61 countries, allowing them to activate markets and establish partnerships worldwide. They also collaborate with various companies across different industries, including airlines, e-commerce platforms, and mobile phone sellers.

Whilst the company is known for travel insurance, this offering constitutes less than 15% of its overall revenue. They offer standalone insurance products, embedded insurance in other services, and advisory-based insurance products to cater to different customer needs.

Among its standalone insurance offerings are motor, property, and personal liability. Tune Protect’s embedded insurance is also available for those looking to travel, protect their e-wallets, and zero-deposit protection for aspiring tenants.

Roy said they also have advice-based services for high-net-worth individuals and small and medium enterprises.

Most notably, Tune Protect is focused on the rise of digital insurance and offers a range of digital products and services. The insurer strives to have a strong digital presence, with a significant portion of its revenue generated through digital platforms.

The cloud advantage

Tune Protect has achieved a significant milestone as the first Malaysian insurer to receive approval from the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to implement a cloud-based core system.

This adoption of cloud technology brings forth a multitude of advantages for the Malaysian insurer.

First and foremost, this adoption of technology enables speedier innovation and faster go-to-market strategies, allowing the company to stay ahead of the competition and quickly adapt to changing customer needs.

Cloud technology also allows Tune Protect to easily scale up or down its infrastructure based on demand. This, of course, ensures optimal resource allocation and cost-effectiveness, Roy said.

The on-demand provisioning of infrastructure significantly reduces costs compared to traditional on-premise solutions, saving both time and financial resources.

Another remarkable advantage of the cloud is its capability to streamline the provisioning process, with infrastructure being set up in a matter of minutes rather than weeks or months.

This places Tune Protect in a position to boast of expedited processing that is both agile and flexible.

Its cloud solutions also prioritise security, with securely designed data centres tailored to meet the needs of even the most sensitive organisations, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.