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PolicyPal will use the newly-raised capital to ramp up marketing and product development

The PolicyPal team

Singapore-based insurtech startup PolicyPal has raised an undisclosed seed funding from 500 Startups and a group of undisclosed angel investors.

It will also use the newly-raised capital to ramp up marketing and product development.

PolicyPal will also now join the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s FinTech Regulatory Sandbox, where it will be testing their product through a partnership with insurance providers NTUC Income and Etiqa insurance.

These two companies will distribute their insurance products to consumers via PolicyPal’s mobile app over a period of six months.

NTUC income will also be working with PolicyPal through its Income Future Starter programme, an equity-free insurtech accelerator powered by Infocomm Investments’s programme TAG.PASS.

“In line with today’s fast-evolving Fintech landscape, we work closely with sandbox applicants to understand how we can facilitate meaningful Fintech experiments and enable financial institutions and start-ups to harness technology to deliver financial services and products that can benefit both consumers and the industry,” said MAS’s Chief Fintech Officer, Sopnendu Mohanty, in an official press statement.

Tackling an issue close to home

Val Ji-Hsuan Yap, CEO and Founder of PolicyPal, said the idea for PolicyPal was sparked after a series of family tragedies.

First, her mother was unable to claim insurance for cancer treatments because her insurance policy had lapsed for a few months before subsequent payments were made. Thankfully, despite this hurdle, she was able to recover.

Also Read: 7 ways Singapore’s central bank (MAS) is turning the country into a fintech powerhouse

Then, when her father passed away due to a sudden heart attack, Yap had to laboriously visit all of the insurer’s branch offices in order to gather information on her late father’s insurance coverage.

Based on these experiences, Yap discovered there was a critical need to help people manage, track and understand insurance policies more efficiently.

This led to the creation of the PolicyPal app, which uses a dashboard to display existing insurance coverage, payment and renewal dates. Consumers will also be able to check outstanding insurance payment amounts, as well as policy expiry and payment dates.

Additionally, PolicyPal uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to digitalise existing insurance policies to analyse and suggest improvements on the coverage.  Consumers can also optimise policies and request for recommendations by speaking with the app’s chatbot.

“Many people are not sure of their insurance coverage and only realise the importance of it during times of emergencies. PolicyPal was created to keep everyone on top of their insurance coverage so they don’t have to wait until it is too late,” said Yap, in an official press statement.

Also Read: Got a burning financial question? This Singapore-based portal aims to address them

“We partner with insurers to provide an alternative platform for consumers that will automate part of their insurance journeys such as the consolidation of insurance policies and answering basic consumer questions,” she added.

Currently, PolicyPal claims to have over S$6 million (US$4.25 million) worth of policies uploaded onto its platform.

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Image Credit: PolicyPal

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