It is important for insurers to understand the increasingly dynamic preferences to bring suitable and attractive products that best fit consumers. Award-winning regional insurtech company Igloo provides people-first and simple insurance solutions that leverage up-and-coming technologies to protect disadvantages segments against emerging risks to deliver insurance for all.

Tri Nguyen, Vietnam country manager, Igloo

We forecast that the following types of insurance will be the top five in non-life products capturing the attention of consumers next year.

Asset insurance

With the increasing occurrence of natural calamities like floods and fires, it is becoming more important for Vietnamese consumers to protect their valuable assets and increase their financial resilience.

To address this, Igloo has partnered with e-commerce giant Shopee to introduce Home Content Insurance in Vietnam, a comprehensive protection solution for indoor assets, against unexpected events such as natural disasters and fire.

With Home Content Insurance, Igloo enables asset owners to receive protection that matches and ensures the continuity of day-to-day life in times of calamity.

Fire insurance

A deadly fire in Hanoi in early September rang a warning bell about the fire risks of apartment buildings and awareness of fire safety across the country. Therefore, fire insurance is expected to receive greater attention from consumers.

Besides raising people’s awareness and knowledge about fire prevention, having fire insurance to protect the property from losses and damage brought by fire is necessary. This will also be an important criterion for homebuyers and renters to choose where to live in the future.

Pet insurance

The number of pet owners is constantly increasing, with an average annual growth rate of about 11 per cent per year. Vietnam is not an exception, where more and more people consider pets as a member of their family. Pet-related services are also on the rise, with Gen Z willing to spend 20 per cent of their disposable income on raising and caring for pets.

Health insurance for pets is also growing at an impressive rate, with an average annual rate of 23.4 per cent. Igloo recently partnered with GCash and Malayan Insurance in the Philippines to offer Pet Insure, which provides reimbursement, pet owner’s liability, and 24/7 pet owner’s personal accident cover. This product will soon be expanded to Vietnam.

Health and accident insurance

Health insurance is not new but has always been and will be the driving force for development of Vietnam’s non-life insurance industry. The ageing population and a strong growth of the middle class has led to the significant increase in the need to use higher-quality medical services.

Health insurance is provided by most insurers in the country. However, one of the major reasons consumers are hesitant about buying insurance products is a lack of personalisation.

Traditional insurance policies often include broad coverage, which drives up costs. On top of that, many aspects of the policies might not apply to each consumer.

Weather index insurance

In recent years, the country has seen an increase in extreme weather events, affecting people’s lives and causing huge damage to property, especially the vulnerable communities whose livelihoods depend on the weather like farmers.

It is crucial to take measures to protect this fragile community against extreme weather conditions. Protecting farmers not only helps solve social security problems, but is also important to ensuring the food security of the nation. With a simple claims process based on the predetermined weather indices, the weather index insurance is expected to increasingly attract a greater interest.

Last year, Igloo and partners announced the launch of the country’s first Weather Index Insurance – a blockchain-based parametric index insurance product that automates the insurance claims of rice farmers. This May, we continued to expand this weather index insurance to coffee farmers in the central highlands of Vietnam.

The parametric insurance will pay out claims calculated using pre-assigned values for losses due to weather events or natural calamities. It will also eliminate the need to individually verify claims, thereby reducing transaction costs.