Full post:
​https://frenchtech.sg/author/thibautbriere/

After the blockchain last week, today we’re diving in the Insurtech industry. Matthias de Ferrières, founder and CEO of the Stark group tell sus how he started his companies and what it means for him to be an entrepreneur.

Matthias, tell us more about yourself?

I founded my first company when I was 16. It was a community of Lego fans and we were organizing events on weekends. It was really fun and I learned a lot! But I sold it after a year to go back to my studies.
After that I worked for Arthur Andersen for about a year and then I wanted to learn english so I decided to move to Australia. I did several jobs there and I finally got a lawyer degree.
I then moved to Singapore to work for Axa. I started as a intern, and I ended-up as their CMO when I left.

What are you doing now?

So in 2013, digital was starting to boom and we had a product to acquire customers online. I decided to take it and built a company around it, this is how Stark Group started. Today the group has 3 businesses:

• Insurance republic

The company is mandated by banks or insurers to design their products, from the customer journey to the pricing, etc.). Most insurers today are focused on compliance, legal and risk, not really the product design itself sor we’re filling this gap.

• MotorDBS

In partnerships with DBS we’ve built the first price comparison engine for motor insurance

• MyInsurer

This one works extremely well and takes most of my focus at the moment. 
It is a marketing platform for insurance intermediaries

What does it mean for you to be an entrepreneur?

The challenge is that the insurance business is not interesting or sexy for anybody. To me this is a great opportunity as an entrepreneur.
I’m convinced that you need experience anyways, whatever the business you’re in. Entrepreneurship is really about knowing your industry inside out and understanding its needs and risks. Today my company works because I spent 15 years working like crazy in a company in this domain. You need 3 things:

• Know the industry
• Understand and evaluate the gaps
• Know how to potentially fill them.

By the way, it is probably the next challenge of the entrepreneurs ecosystem in Singapore. The whole environment here is still young. It’s dynamic but it lacks experience and structure.

What are you objectives in the coming months?

​Today I’m very focused on MyInsurer.  I have always bootstrapped my businesses and Stark Group has invested SGD400K in MyInsurer, but now is the time for us to raise more funds and hire different types of profiles.
I am very pragmatic: I know I am very good at knowing which products to build and how to sell them, but I need the right profiles to help use on other aspects. Our plan is to raise funds in September to be ready to deploy later in the year.

The human element
Mr Leong believes that agents still have a critical part to play in the insurance value chain as they can provide policyholders the assurances only a human touch can bring, by being present in times of crisis.
“At the end of the day a promise made is a promise kept. And when we deliver their cheques, when we deliver payments on hospital bills, we are there,” he said. “Even if there is death, disability or critical illness, we are there.”
Singapore Insurance Institute president and Chubb Asia Pacific regional head of agency development and incentives Jeanette Lim said that different types of products require varying levels of customer engagement.
She compared buying travel insurance and retirement plans to illustrate her point. Buying travel insurance online for a short holiday, bypassing the agent altogether, has become relatively common because of how quick and simple it is.
In contrast, purchasing something bulkier like a retirement plan involves navigating complex intricacies and weighing up the pros and cons of all available policies. Ms Lim said that this process would be far better served with an agent around to give advice.
Ms Lim was part of a panel at the summit alongside Stark Group CEO Matthias de Ferrieres and Huntington Partners partner digital Cristiano Pizzocheri that discussed opportunities and collaborations between AI and agents.

Stark Group and its disruptive solutions will be represented at the 20th Asia Conference on Bancassurance in Bangkok. Matthias de Ferrieres is invited to share his views on the Bancassurance has changed in the past years and how it embraced the Tech economy and the digital demand. 

Innovation through new technologies is a key driver of change in the financial sector and this has led to immeasurable efficiency gains, even though these changes can initially be accompanied by uncertainty and doubt. The Bancassurance sector is no exception to such developments, with possibilities of new methods of service provision as well as greater opportunities for data collection, new product & services deployment. 
Yet we dont observe much for the past years. What are the reasons ? Risk adverse governance, strict compliance, disorganisation, fear for innovation? 
​Lets explore!

On behalf of the Asia insurance review and the its Summit,  InsurTech has developed rapidly in the last few years. Since the emergence of digital labs in 2015, the industry has gone on to witness a revamped insurance landscape, shaped by the birth of startup innovations and digital insurers among others. Today, regulatory sandboxes and pilot projects are the norm.
Insurers can no longer afford to work exclusively with traditional partners in today’s digital economy; they must seek other avenues – such as e-commerce and the sharing economy – and adapt to the new reality.
But with change come new opportunities, and leveraging technology is the key to taking on the challenges in the brave new insurance world. Insurers must find ways to embed themselves in the digital ecosystem or risk being left out.

Stark Group designed a range of products called mi insurance.
It is a set of simple insurance products with no underwriting questions, no hidden Term & Conditions.

• Easy to understand, easy to purchase, easy to process, easy to claims! and affordable. 
• The first product launched is a simple mobile protection that will cover any mobile device aged 24 months or less up to SGD1,000. 
• The price is SGD 48 / year with a SGD100 excess that is applicable for each and every claims. 
• Policies will be processed into the app my-insurer which will make the first app with an embedded mobile insurance in Singapore and in Asia 

my-insurer is a marketing platform dedicated to intermediaries. It offers many functionalities such as publishing, lead generation, policy processing, KYC & FNA. 
Foremost it comes with an app for all policyholders. 

With the launch of mi insurance products, my-insurer differentiates again itself as a unique platform for insurance intermediation.
mi insurance products are simple, cheap, clear and lean with single benefits. Such protection cannot be found in the insurance market. As such the platform provides a unique competitive advantage to its members that wish to offer to their customers a clear insurance that respond to their needs.
​
Intermediaries that use my-insurer as a marketing, leads, publishing and crm platform, have now another strong value proposition to offer to their leads,  prospect to sign and download the app!

Stark Group represented by Matthias de Ferrieres (Founder and CEO) was invited to discuss about opportunities in setting up tech companies in Singapore.
The panel examined the strengths and weaknesses of creating and growing business within the Singapore environment from a Fintech perspective.
Critical topics were on data protection through ownership, storage and flow as well the talent management.