What's made them Finalists

Finding creative solutions to deal with communicating complex information to consumers and ensuring that sustainability is embedded throughout their organisation, starting with leadership, Singlife builds easy to comprehend visual communications to empower customers to make informed financial decisions as the continue to strive to continue building a robust sustainability strategy. 

Customer Engagement and Visual Insurance Initiative 

By actively engaging with their customers and understanding that insurance products can be complex, intimidating with lengthy documents and technical jargon, Singlife have taken steps prioritise transparency, ease of understanding, and personalised interactions to ensure that customers feel empowered and confident in their financial decisions. Their ongoing Voice of Customer programmes give them room to attentively listen to customer feedback, ensuring their voices are heard and incorporated into their decision-making process. 

In 2021, Singlife launched their Visual Insurance Initiative, a ground-breaking approach to make insurance more accessible and comprehensible. To avoid overwhelming their customers with complicated jargon, they shifted their focus to visual language and components that align with their cognitive shortcuts and enhance their understanding of insurance products. 

To achieve this, they conducted a project a project involving consumers and financial advisor representatives to gain insights into how customers process communication materials. Their objective was to identify aspects that were challenging to understand. Through this investigation, they identified 16 visual codes that clearly communicate insurance concepts. These visual codes empowered customers with solid financial competency, ensuring they could make informed financial decisions when purchasing products.

To ensure the widespread adoption of these visual codes, Singlife conducts regular internal workshops to educate and train employees across the organisation. These workshops build competency in graphic insurance, teaching team members how to apply the codes and critically assess the material. As a result, they now use visual aids such as infographics and videos to explain product coverage, terms, and conditions, providing customers with a clear understanding of their policies right from the start.
 

Embedding Sustainability Throughout their Organisation and Practices 

Embedded into their governance structure, responsibility for ensuring sustainable practices are being implemented begins at the helm of the organisation, with their Board of Directors ensuring the integration of sustainability into the company’s strategy and reviewing the progress and outcomes of initiatives. Their sustainability initiatives are executed through a five-pronged strategy called RAISE - Responsible investor, Accelerator of net zero, Innovator for green and good, Sustainability-embedded culture, and Effective governance and risk management. In recognising that sustainability challenges require global collaborative action, their strategy is aligned to six UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Within their first year of operations in July 2022, they became the second insurer in Southeast Asia to be recognised as a signatory of the United Nations (UN) Principles for Sustainable Insurance. They also published their inaugural climate-related financial disclosure (TCFD) report that same year. Less than a year later, they were the first insurer in Southeast Asia to become a signatory of the UN-supported Principles of Responsible Investment. Their investment decisions are guided by their newly introduced Responsible Investment Guidelines that considers how investees manage their material ESG factors and invest in sustainable assets that support a just transition to a low-carbon economy. 

To reduce operational emissions, Singlife has digitised the bulk of their customer communications and leverage artificial intelligence to streamline operations. They have reduced paper use for customer communication by utilising digital channels (75% digital in 2022) and are migrating their IT infrastructure to cloud storage. We’ve also set targets to fully transition from on-premises data centres. Additionally, they have introduced a Supplier Sustainability Assessment that enables them to review key suppliers’ sustainability practices and provide improvement recommendations. 

The organisation actively participates in sustainability-focused industry initiatives, including a Monetary Authority of Singapore-led initiative to offer green logistics fleet insurance and have partnered with global insurance peers to contribute to sustainability research and thought leadership, publication of the UN PSI Health Protection Gap paper in June 2023.

As of December 2022, they had committed over S$500 million towards sustainable investments such as BlackRock Decarbonization Partners Fund I, a joint venture with Temasek that is expected to record an annual carbon reduction of 39 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per US$100 capital invested by the year 2032.

In 2023, they committed to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners Fund V, a renewable energy and green infrastructure investment estimated to provide 20 gigawatts of clean energy to over 10 million households. This means avoiding 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per EU$ 1 million invested.

In November 2022, Singlife were the first insurer to participate in Project Greenprint, a Monetary Authority of Singapore-led initiative to promote sustainable finance. They partnered with CO2X, a sustainability-focused blockchain technology company, to provide differentiated insurance benefits and solutions to green logistics fleet operators and assess their carbon data and monthly emissions.