Matthias de Ferrieres sharing his views on Insurance innovation based on its PhD findings at The Asia InsurTech Podcast!

The Asia InsurTech Podcast spoke with Matthias de Ferrieres, the CEO at Wellnex, about the current InsurTech hype and what academic research says about it. Matthias holds a PhD in Entrepreneurial economics and published a dissertation with the title: “The Rise of the Digital Economy: Estimating the Impact of a New Generation of Entrepreneurs as Disruptive Entrants in the Insurance Industry in Singapore”.
The gap is not about the insurance per se, but about creating a better value propositions linked to the insurance industry. Matthias de Ferrieres explains in which way Wellnex responds to this value proposition: "Wellnex is like a pre-type of concierge on that by invitation only. Financial advisor are paying me to be able to give that free concierge or to their customer, to their leads, to their clients, okay, to their insured to their policyholder. So financial advisor, again, are my clients. They are paying me a fixed summons per year, to be able to generate leads, and they have a reason to create a leads to invite someone for a webinar or seminar, to push them to go for a screening to get home services. Because it will be free for the customer.
And they’re able to collect that as a financial adviser. And the insured is happy, because he has a free membership, where he can get health care service, up to 60% discount, he can get access to concierge that will help them to do to fix their garden, their their air conditioning, I mean any service, you name it. And this will be paid by the financial advisor.
So the question now is why it works. Wellnex has a very specific business model. A business model that makes people pay for what they get. The model is not design around commission, charge on transaction or something similar.

Talking about Venture Capital and entrepreneurship, Matthias de Ferrieres highlighted that first, not everyone can do what he does, because, he started with the support of AXA. Matthias de Ferrieres justified that he cannot raise money, because of his attitude, his personality which dont fit with the world of Fund Raising.
Also not everyone can can start from scratch because you need a minimum investment and try out. But the beauty of one you don’t have funding is you don’t have the same pressure. By not raising money, Matthias de Ferrieres confirms that he does not have the pressure other may have. For instance, he can can test and learn, he can adjust extremely fast without justifying to anyone else, why he is doing something.
Should be attached ot a VC, you need to spend a lot of time and energy to explain to justify why you are doing some things this way and not the other way. In addition most of the times those VCs have the same breed the same way of thinking than any other industry or VCs for the industry. Venture capitalists believe that a good startup is a company that demonstrate tit can acquire more clicks, more members, more time on the app. Revenue is often second. Yet, in insurance such model does not work. 
Matthias de Ferrieres concluded that the power of Wellnex is the team and the fact that we are independent because it did not raise money and it has a profitable. business.

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