Tech-based solutions essential for insurance industry growth: start-up

Despite the fierce competition in the market, Sri Lanka’s insurance industry has largely remained conventional in its business operations for decades. Earlier this year, however, signs of an eminent disruption appeared with online insurance aggregators and comparison platforms entering the market. Save Your Monkey is one such pioneering insurtech start-up that’s promising to disrupt the conventional insurance industry through digitalization. 

The brainchild of three young entrepreneurs, saveyourmonkey.com was officially launched a month back with Sri Lanka’s first digital insurance agent, Amaya going trilingual. 

Save Your Monkey Founding Director and CEO Chathura Jayatissa shared his thoughts about what’s to be expected from the digital revolution in the insurance industry. 

‘’Insuretech start-ups primarily focus on the technological development of the insurance industry and we are one of the first in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s insurance industry has not experienced any disruption in a long time. So the idea was to ‘Save Your Money’ by creating a comparison platform where you can make an informed decision about your requirement. Through this platform we enabled our customers to compare, select and purchase insurance policies from the best insurers in the country at the convenience of their fingertips,” Jayatissa said explaining the concept of his venture. 

Jayatissa and his two colleagues, Amanda Jayatissa and Dhanushka Liyanage came up with the concept for saveyourmonkey.com a few years ago and have been slowly building up ever since. 

“The first tech solution we developed for our platform is Amaya, a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence components. A development like this is the first of its kind in this region. We are currently working on a few more cutting-edge innovations and are optimistic that some of these will create a great impact in insurance on a global or at least a regional level,” Jayatissa explained.

Talking about the potential of the idea and timeliness, Jayatissa points out that every industry is bound to be digitalized at some point. With the high penetration of mobile Internet in Sri Lanka, several industries such as transportation have been rapidly digitalized over the last few years and e-commerce has achieved a phenomenal growth.

“It is only a matter of time before the insurance industry would adapt to these changes as well and we are really excited to be on the forefront of this evolution. Digital solutions are essential for the industry to grow. For us it was all about correct timing and identifying when the market would be ready for this. So far, we believe we did it right.” 

The insurance industry’s hesitance to adapt to new technology stems from a combination of different elements that vary from market-related factors to economic and social changes affecting customers. Being a highly competitive market, pricing is of utmost importance for companies, while the services and claims process is important to customers. 

‘’Insurtech start-ups can be instrumental in creating this much-needed balance between the two parties. As we move forward, we hope to further develop our platform with more features that will address these issues. One such feature is a rating/review system for insurance companies based on customer feedback. But this needs to be done over a period of time, making space for companies as well as customers to ease into these new changes. As an insurtech start-up, our job is to identify problems within the industry and develop tech solutions,’’ says Jayatissa.

‘’However, we need to understand that technological innovations come from a good start-up environment. An environment that is encouraging towards start-ups is necessary. In Sri Lanka, start-ups have to literally ‘start-up’ against everything. As they slowly progress, we can hope to see a lot of things change in the industry,” he further added.

Procuring an insurance policy is a long process that starts with inquiring from insurance agents, friends and peers about the best option. One can easily avoid this hassle now by using saveyourmonkey.com. But what would be the guarantee that what you get is the best?

Jayatissa answers, “Insurance policy pricing depends on a number of variables and we have made sure that our system has incorporated all these variables. We guarantee that Save Your Monkey rates are the best you can get in the market and if it isn’t we will match the price the customer receives from elsewhere. Also, we are providing an overall solution to a problem and also offer a lot of value additions to our service. 

For example, right now, we offer a discount for all insurance policies. We recently partnered with Nations Trust Bank American Express to offer zero percent interest instalment plans and on top of that up to 10 percent savings on regular days and up to 25 percent savings on special days. We keep adding partners almost every week to offer more value additions. Considering all this, we can guarantee that Save Your Monkey will soon be regarded the best place for insurance needs.”