Insurtech start-ups competing to win a US$100,000 contract to develop and pilot solutions with MetLife EMEA can look forward to “building a long-term relationship” focused on helping innovation to succeed, previous winners of the insurance giant’s collabprogrammes say.

A large number of insurtechs and entrepreneurs have already applied for “collab 3.0 EMEA”, a global open innovation platform inviting participants to scale their business with MetLife while solving some of the insurer’s biggest challenges across its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Startups can still apply up until close on 20 April, 2018 at the collab website for the opportunity to develop solutions in areas such as customer engagement, sales, and operations, and to pilot these solutions with MetLife EMEA.

Created by LumenLab, MetLife Asia’s innovation center, collab 3.0 EMEA builds on the success of two previous collabprogrammes for MetLife Asia (collab 1.0) and MetLife Japan (collab 2.0), which have awarded US$600,000 in equity-free contracts to startup finalists.

Previous collab winners have focused on areas including operations optimisation, product pricing, customer engagement, digital distribution, and claims analysis.

KlaasStijnen, CEO of Montoux, one of the collab 2.0’s winners, which has already started to pilot its solutions in product pricing optimisation with MetLife Japan, advises entrants to be transparent about the advantages and disadvantages of their solution when applying and to be prepared for high calibre engagement if they are selected for the programme.

Following a rigorous selection process, MetLife will determine eight finalists and pair them with MetLife EMEA employee champions to help finalists hone their pitch and improve problem-solution fit.

“You are building a long-term relationship, so take your time to explain and ask questions and ensure communication is clear. Have patience and ask for advice from MetLife’s employee champions and LumenLab’scollab team on your pitch. That process is a great help to get your value proposition right.”

“Winning collab was a far easier way of entering a new market than the traditional route and a key advantage was the level of support from different layers and geographies within MetLife to make innovation succeed,” KlaasStijnen, CEO of Montoux.

The eight finalists will be invited to attend the collab Summit EMEA and Demo Day in London on 11-12 July 2018 to present their solutions where the ultimate winner will be announced.

To learn more and apply for collab 3.0 EMEA, please visit: collab.lumenlab.sg.