Call for Proposals: Insurance Innovation Challenge Fund – Malaysia

Powered by UNDP and Generali, the IICF is looking for innovative ideas for insurance products and services for underserved population segments and new markets. The Challenge Fund facilitates and incentivizes the development of two solutions in Malaysia for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) resilience. The proposed solutions should involve scaling up existing solutions and tailoring them to SME resilience while partnering with diverse distribution channels and integrating new technology solutions.

Award Details

• Successful applicants will be awarded up to US$40,000.
• Technical assistance to support the development of the idea.
• Possibility to access the UNDP global presence (+170 countries) and networks to help support the selected solutions.
• Promising solutions could later be considered for further engagement as part of UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility or other UNDP initiatives.

Duration

• The Project must be completed within 24 months from the signature of the Innovation Challenge Agreement.

The Solutions

• Through the IICF, UNDP and Generali will seek out two or more innovative solutions that embody the following attributes:
  • The main attribute:
    • Build SME resilience – To climate and other risks, allowing them to grow and invest, and be more productive. Products can cover, for example, stock and machinery, business continuity, staff, specific or multiple risks.
  • Other features of the product they seek include:
    • Innovative – Introduction of innovative business models, technologies, ideas, or products that specifically focus on SME resilence in Malaysia.
    • Sustainability – The project should demonstrate self-sustainability by the end of the agreed support period, this requires achieving sufficient scale and increasing efficiency and impact.
    • Distribution strategy – Not simply selling insurance in isolation, complimenting other services provided and needed by SMEs.
    • Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – Should show a demonstrable impact on the SDGs.
    • Scale Potential – The proposed project must have a potential for financial, social and environmental sustainability and scale-up.
    • Gender – Innovations should also include a focus on ensuring gender equity. Applicants must ensure that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to the proposed innovation.

Eligibility Criteria

• The eligible applicants are insurance solution providers such as insurers, intermediaries and aggregators, insurtechs, distribution channels, and other related private sector actors. Entities wishing to apply to the challenge fund need to focus on solutions which address a development need through innovative thinking and assure viability in local conditions and to promote sustainability and scalability of the solution. Eligible applicants must already have an established insurance product or solution that they would modify or adapt to reach SMES (either in new geographies, or to leverage new distribution channels or technologies to scale access and experience).
• Entities wishing to apply to the challenge fund need to meet the following eligibility criteria:
  • Registered entity: The lead applicant must be a registered entity and have all the necessary licenses and permissions to sell and distribute insurance products in the country of implementation.
  • Licenses. The applicant must have all the necessary licenses and permissions to sell and distribute insurance products in the country of implementation.
• N.B. The applicant that does not fulfill the license criteria above, may partner with one or more entities to fill the gap.
  • Expertise and Capacity to Implement the Project: All applicants must demonstrate their capacity to implement their proposed project and will need to demonstrate adequate material, human and other non-financial resources to implement the proposed project within the set timeframe.
  • Product: The funding request is for a specific, innovative project that supports the risk resilience of SMEs in Malaysia. The applicant must propose an insurance product(s) that it will modify or adapt in an innovative way to reach SMEs including:
    • a new distribution channel, product, or service;
    • a new region;
    • a new segment or sector;
  • Go to Market: Entities should demonstrate the ability to launch the product within 6 months of the award.

For more information, visit UNDP.