Innovation Challenge 2025: Insurance Solutions for Young People in Asia-Pacific

What is a concern or issue that you believe young people (<35 years) in the Asia-Pacific region are facing today? Can you create an insurance solution to solve it? That is exactly what we asked teams across nine universities to solve in 2025.

The Young Actuaries Advisory Board (YAAB)’s Innovation Challenge returned in 2025, sponsored by Milliman and organised by the Innovation Challenge Committee (ICC); consisting of Sophia Songberg (Scyne Advisory), Nala Hong (Quantium), Han Yu (Deloitte) and Takudwza Munyanyi (Pacific Life Re).

The competition consisted of three rounds: slides and speaker notes to pick the top three teams within each university, video recording of presentation to pick the top team within each university and a live final presentation to pick the top team across the universities.

Teams of up to four actuarial students from nine Asia-Pacific universities brainstormed solutions to the task:

On 8 October, YAAB ICC members Han and Nala, and a judging panel consisting of George Leung (Milliman), Heerak Basu (Milliman) and Tong Zhang (Legal & General) facilitated the finals. Each team had 10 minutes to present, followed by 5 minutes of question time for judges to clarify information or ask for more details.

A snippet of TimeShield Logistic Insurance's presentation

Blue Valley from Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia were the winners of the Innovation Challenge for this year and received a cash prize from Milliman. Team members Liem Gloria Brenda Halim, Della Pevivenia Sidabutar, Conny Naro Glory Sipahutar and Fransisca Benedicta presented TimeShield Logistics Insurance, an AI-powered insurance awareness solution for young drivers navigating Indonesia's busiest traffic.

TimeShield is designed to protect online drivers' income from time lost due to urban congestion. It compensates drivers for delays caused by severe traffic through an affordable, automated and accessible insurance solution. Blue Valley estimates 90% automation using an AI risk engine, featuring three key dashboards:

• AI Claim Decision Dashboard displaying outcomes for claims (Reject, Review or Accept) with relevant statistics including actual vs expected time of journey, distance ratio, traffic ratio and historical claim volume. The final outcome takes into account factors such as traffic estimation, distance ratio, behavioural analysis and weather conditions.
• AI Claim System Monitoring Dashboard providing an overview of the portfolio with claim acceptance and rejection rates, performance metrics for the AI (accuracy, precision, recall rates), reviewer feedback and weather trend tracking.
• AI Claim Forecasting Dashboard offering a prospective view on number of claims for the following period in both frequency and severity, based on historical data.

Drivers can subscribe monthly to TimeShield with premiums primarily driven by vehicle type. Coverage has monthly limits on both aggregate amount and frequency, with claim requirements including delays of >1 hour, correct route followed (as directed on the ride-hailing app) and filing within 30 days.

For policyholders, an app offers in-app analytics displaying income without traffic delays side-by-side with actual income, along with notifications of income loss after certain triggers. Blue Valley proposes referral programs and influencer partnerships to grow, and cashback schemes paired with auto-renewal to maintain retention. They also propose a premium-sharing model across the platform and TimeShield to overcome platform reluctance, creating a sustainable win-win-win ecosystem for drivers, platforms and the insurer.

There were also several other innovative solutions from our other finalists:

• Claim Chasers (Khai Truong, An Pham, Vu Le, Luong Huynh) from Macquarie University in Australia presented VInsure, a multi-layer solution designed to protect influencers' mental resilience, reputation and career prospects in Vietnam.
• Fusion Solutions (Michelle Lin, Yasiru Jayasekara, Vinuk Ekanayake, Rohan Gade) from the University of New South Wales in Australia presented PortSafe, an insurance product that protects investment downside for young retail investors.
• The Exponentials (Aryan Karwa, Dakshin Sridhar, Vishesh Gupta, Phan Tien Dung Le) from Australian National University in Australia presented KitaCare, insurance for gig workers in the Philippines offering income and volatility protection along with rider re-skilling and wellness benefits.
• PSPI (Samuel Chan, Jowen Ng, Jordan Teo) from Singapore Management University in Singapore presented an Unemployment Endowment Assurance product aimed at assisting with job instability for young, full-time working adults across the Asia Pacific.
• Premium Planners (Aswin Kumar, Easwar Karthikeyan, Pranav Kumar) from the Institute of Actuarial and Quantitative Studies in India presented Edu-Career Care, a flexible product covering educational costs for youths experiencing unemployment across Asia Pacific.
• Toadal Liability (Adrian Luu, Tanay Kulkarni, Ya Wen Chong, Edward Lee) from Monash University in Australia presented Gig-surance, a parametric insurance product covering Indonesia's young gig-workers against heavy rainfall disrupting work.
• Cat Capital (Lok Wei Keat (Anthonio), Cheong Ruoh Kai, Lee Yu-Rong (Darrell), Tan Yew Lu (Keefe)) from the Nanyang Business School in Singapore presented PlatProtect, designed to protect young platform workers in Singapore against income disruption events, inclusive of both injuries/illness and unexpected downtime.
• Model Citizens (Harper Benson, Keisha Chiang, Matthew Langford, Rithika Senthil Kumar) from Curtin University in Australia presented Praesidium Digital, insurance for mobile phones and digital identity packaged in one product aimed at young Australians with online presence.

Watch the full recording of the finals below.

We would like to thank Milliman for sponsoring the Innovation Challenge again, with special recognition to Charles Carneiro, Erica Chan and Queenie Chow for their contributions to the process.

We would also like to thank the Actuaries Institute for their support with running virtual sessions and finalising documents, our judges for marking and feedback during the final round, and the university actuarial societies/faculties for their assistance in running the preliminary rounds.