MetLife has selected eight finalists for its open innovation programme, collab 3.0 EMEA.

Run by LumenLab, MetLife Asia’s Singapore-based innovation center, in collaboration with MetLife’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, the programme invites insurtech innovators to compete for a USD 100,000 contract with MetLife to develop new solutions across the insurance value chain in areas including customer engagement, sales, and operations. The winner will get to pilot their solution with MetLife in EMEA.

Since launching in March, collab 3.0 EMEA has attracted a record number of applications – 148 from 32 countries around the world. The eight finalists will hone their ideas over the next two months before pitching them to senior MetLife executives this July in London.

To help the finalists develop their solutions and enhance their understanding of MetLife’s business, they will be paired with “employee champions” who will provide tailored mentoring, underscoring the company’s commitment to talent development and promoting a culture of innovation.

The eight finalists:

DataRobot (United States) offers an automated machine-learning platform and services that help enterprises make accurate predictions from big data and draw actionable insight in a fraction of the time required by conventional data science tools and methods.

Anorak (United Kingdom) is a smart life insurance advice platform that leverages multiple data sources and machine learning to provide customers unbiased and tailored recommendations on getting the right life insurance policy.

Lucep (Singapore) is an omni-channel engagement system that generates leads from digital channels and directs them to the best agents available to respond to the call, providing the agent with analytics and data on the prospect to help them convert them to a customer.

Kasko (United Kingdom) offers an end-to-end cloud based insurance platform that enables insurers to create, launch, run and optimise digital insurance products in any distribution channel quickly, cost-effectively and flexibly.

Eltropy (United States) empowers financial firms to engage clients across messaging apps like SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Facebook Messenger – to grow revenue rapidly.

The ID Co. (United Kingdom) offers customers a frictionless user verification experience during the on-boarding process by using Open Banking data and identity verification.

TrustSphere (Singapore) uses relationship analytics technology to leverage employee relationship networks in an organisation by automatically analysing only the metadata from employees’ digital interactions.

CUBE (United Kingdom) provides an automated approach to monitor, detect, and analyse global regulatory changes and helps firms to understand the impact of these changes on policy and procedures across all lines of business.

MetLife Asia LumenLab’s CEO and chief innovation officer Zia Zaman said “The Insurtech landscape is rapidly evolving and we are excited to see collab attracting a high calibre of entrants as it goes global. The innovative finalists we chose bring fresh thinking to address the rising expectations of insurance customers. We are excited to work together with them in the coming months.”

MetLife’s US Business and EMEA President Michel Khalaf said: “The strong finalist line up showcases an exciting mix of ideas and technological solutions that can help drive greater value for our business and deliver a differentiated experience for our customers. Our employee champions will offer crucial support, insight, and guidance as our finalists seek to develop their solutions and pitches.”

This is the third collab programme that LumenLab has launched for MetLife. To date, MetLife has awarded more than half a million U.S. dollars’ worth of contracts through collab in Asia that have helped develop practical solutions that deliver value to MetLife’s business and customers.

Source: Company Press Release