Page 110 - July 2024 Issue 632

Preeti Mundhra (CEO – Tree):

Our vision is to be a leading digital insurer across the MENA region

ree, the first Digital Insurance Agency in Saudi Arabia, powered by Tawuniya, is
Tuniquely designed to give customers the flexibility to pick what they need and
change their choices anytime. Fair pricing, instant support, straightforward
language and an intuitive design are at its core. With a young, diverse and talented
team, Tree brings innovative solutions to empower its customers to grow with confi-
dence. Preeti Mundhra, CEO of Tree, is passionate about turning ideas into realities
and challenges to possibilities by unlocking the power of digital in order to redefine
customer experiences, build scale with high growth, create lean operations and lever-
age agile technology. In a Q & A with Al Bayan Magazine, Mrs. Mundhra gave us a
comprehensive idea about their company, highlighting the main points of her speech
at InsureTek Saudi Arabia, talking about the key challenges they faced in the early
stages of starting up and discussing about their results in 2023. Following is an
extract from the interview.
“We will launch the first pet insurance in Saudi Arabia”

• Can you give us an idea about Tree? industry, I hope that we can start using technology in the right way to build
- Tree is the first digital insurance agency and TPA licensed in Saudi connections and networks and allow our people to solve more complex
Arabia. We are a fully owned subsidiary of Tawuniya which is Saudi issues and use emotional intelligence a lot more because our industries
Arabia’s leading insurance company. We have been set up as an inde- really need a lot more emotional intelligence and technology can solve a
pendent company to run the full innovation agenda to bring innovative lot of the other things.
products, processes and solutions to the Saudi market to start with and
then expand into the MENA region with our solutions. We are set up as a • What are some challenges that you faced in building up Tree?
very lean organization so we can work in a fairly nimble and agile way, - We are an independent company that has been built from scratch, so
bringing innovation faster to the market, testing new ideas, experiment- putting together a team with the right skillset and mindset was challeng-
ing a lot more and scaling up efficiently using technology as a foundation. ing. It is not just enough to have the right skill set, getting the right mind-
The company has been launched in December 2022 and we went live set of people who are willing to experiment, have the courage to think
with our first product which is motor insurance. It is fully digital in terms of beyond the traditional options & solutions, who can stick to the plan and
sales and claims, and while we have been growing with the motor insur- steer when needed is crucial. They need to be mentally agile to work in
ance sector, there is a lot that has been happening behind the scenes as such an environment because not everything is predictable. As a result,
well and thus this year we will see a lot more coming out beyond motor building the team up from scratch was one of the hardest things but we
insurance. are very blessed now with a very strong team. Another challenge is find-
ing the right gaps in the market where we as a startup should be making
• On what did you focus in your speech at InsureTek Saudi Arabia? the most amount of impact, given that there are only few products that
- Technology is an enabler; it doesn’t replace and solve all the problems. are really mandatory and rule the insurance P&L. We are constantly look-
It can’t work in isolation. It is a partner that is used sensibly to create the ing for new avenues and ways of creating meaningful differentiation.
right level of automation; thus, allowing people to use their time, intelli-
gence, IQ and EQ for solving more complex problems rather than just • Are you satisfied from your results in 2023? What are you expec-
doing routine jobs. I focused on adopting a human centric approach to tations going forward into 2024?
insurance. At Tree, we are in the process of launching the first pet insur- - 2023 was a year that I personally will never forget. It was an extremely
ance for Saudi Arabia. It is a product that is not available in the country intense year especially that so much happened from us going live to us
yet and it is not a mandatory product. While buying an insurance product building end-to-end capabilities in the insurance value chain. Nevertheless,
is not the most exciting thing they will do in their day to day life, talking being able to set ourselves up was a great achievement. We now have
about their pets and sharing their stories, concerns and asking questions over 50 thousand customers that are actively using our motor policies over
in the community is something that will drive a lot of interest. So, we have Saudi Arabia. Moreover, a lot of lessons have been learned in terms of how
taken a community approach asking to set the team up to scale efficiently
ourselves questions like: As an insur- when we grow bigger so having a lean
ance provider, can we bring more technology from the very beginning
awareness into the market and build and meeting all the regulatory require-
more responsible community? There is ments was essential while setting up
so much work that is yet to be done in our business. In respect to 2024, it is a
terms of building responsible behav- lot about scaling up motor and living
iours, engaged communities and giv- true to what our original vision is to be
ing people a sense of pride in co-creat- a leading digital insurer across the
ing a product with an insurance com- MENA region, which means going
pany. With the pet insurance, we are beyond motor and introducing a lot of
actively working with the pet loving other interesting solutions. We also
community in Riyadh, getting their want to work closely on enabling full
feedbacks, understanding their pain digital journeys for micro companies
points and then coming out with the and small industries, , retaining our
solution that answers many of their experimental mindset and growing with
existing pains and problems. As an confidence.
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