INDONESIA-BASED INSUR-TECH FIRM QOALA EYES 30,000 MALAYSIAN USERS IN 2022

By Muhamad Amir Aiman Azlan

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 (Bernama) – Holding on to its virtue of accessibility for protection, Qoala an insur-tech company is on the steady path towards becoming the top insurance intermediary in Malaysia, while projecting to provide protection to 30,000 users this year. 

Head of Qoala Malaysia Akash Sharma said the Indonesia-based company had grown 11-fold in terms of revenue since its initial operation here in April last year.

He said the upbeat forecast for the company which houses offerings from its various insurance partners is also due to its affordability and unbiased business practices. 

“Lower price does not mean lower coverage, basically insurance products are built out of a lot of features, there are a lot of things in it which at times are not even usable but people are charged for it. 

“With the help of the insurance company, what we do is we create a product which is specifically fit for our (customers) purposes, lower in cost but has the same protection because it does not have unnecessary features, so that’s how lower priced product can always have higher protection,” he told Bernama recently.

Leveraging on the digital platform, Qoala aims to make insurance easy to use universally. It operates through its website or its phone application, allowing customers to choose from a variety of insurance products offered by different insurance providers with Lonpac Insurance Bhd as its latest integration. 

Bernama perusals of its mobile application found out Qoala offers its personal accident insurance through one of its takaful partners with an annual premium as low as RM30.

Since its commencement in Indonesia in 2018, the company has expanded into the Southeast Asia (SEA)  market namely with its acquisition of FairDee in Thailand and is currently exploring the market in Vietnam.

“Qoala is strengthening its position in SEA first and actively evaluating several new markets. We will provide more details in due course and it will be done through partnerships and offerings expansions. 

The company which also advocates financial literacy believes that the maturity of the domestic markets and Malaysia-friendly regulations for digitisation and its unbiased business practices as it is part of Bank Negara Malaysia’s regulatory sandbox has been fruitful for its growth. 

“We will not push for any specific products as we work in a very unbiased fashion. We are an online platform where one can come and choose any insurance product.

"We as a company will be transparent on information and helping them to understand what the right product fit is for them and giving them all the information to make apple to apple comparison and choose the best fit product for their use," he said. 

On the question of data security, Akash assures that its customer security is intact as the company uses a similar technology for its Indonesia counterpart that was built there which is also certified by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). 

"We as an organisation believe strongly in the issue of data security… we have a different system in which the data flow, we also have processes around what data to be shown to what kind of users, and all the customer data in Malaysia are handled in our system and not accessible by any random person,” he said. 

Recently the Insur-tech startup managed to raise US$65 million (RM289 million) in Series B funding led by Eurazeo with the participation of several existing investors including Flourish Ventures, KB Investment, MassMutual Ventures, MDI Ventures, SeedPlus and Sequoia Capital India

Series B also saw BRI Ventures, Daiwa PI Partners, Indogen Capital, Mandiri Capital Indonesia and Salt Ventures jump on the bandwagon as new investors. 

-- BERNAMA