GCash offers online shopping insurance in partnership with Igloo

By Patricia Mirasol

GCash now offers online shopping insurance protection in partnership with Igloo, a Singapore-based insurance technology (insurtech) firm. Users can choose to be insured on transactions done through online marketplaces such as Lazada, Shopee, Viber, and Facebook, as long as the payments were fulfilled via the e-wallet platform. Igloo’s Online Shopping product is part of its Cyber Protection vertical, which secures financial loss arising from online marketplace fraud.

“With the growing number of digital consumers in the country, now more than ever, is it most important to provide flexible solutions for the changing needs and processes of both businesses and customers,” said Mario Berta, country manager of Igloo Philippines, in a press statement. “With many GCash customers belonging to [the Gen Z and millennial] bracket, Igloo’s protection is not only timely but very relevant to GCash customers’ needs.”

A 2021 survey by Transunion LLC, a risk and information solutions provider, found that 44% of Filipino digital customers had been a target of fraud in March of this year. The majority of them were Gen Zs (44%) and millennials (39%).

The shopping insurance product is available on Android phones through the app’s GInsure tab. It will be made available soon for iOS phones.

Mr. Berta told BusinessWorld that in the Philippines, the product is the first of its kind to be distributed in this manner and at its price points (P15/month for a coverage of up to P50,000; P24/month for a coverage of up to P100,000; and P30/month for a coverage of up to P150,000).

“Users can claim the full amount as the amount covered under the protection is up to P50,000,” Mr. Berta said in an e-mail, adding that the insurance encompasses all items bought through the e-wallet, including food, clothes, and electronics. But there is a caveat: “This is subject to evaluation by the insurer. One of the requirements is that the mode of payment has to have been done via GCash.”

The online shopping protection — underwritten by insurance corporation PGA Sompo — is one of the first products Igloo is launching with GCash. Within the next six months it will be rolling out products geared towards MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) in the Philippines.

GCash has 46 million users who log onto the platform a total of over 13 million times a day. The e-wallet processes an average of P300 billion in monthly transactions. It is on track to reach P3 trillion in full-year gross transactions – three times last year’s performance.

Forty million new users joined the Internet in 2020, compared to 100 million between 2015 and 2019, according to the 2020 e-Conomy Southeast Asia survey by Google and Temasek. On average across the region, one in three (or about 36%) of all digital service consumers are new to the service due to COVID-19. In the Philippines, 37% of all the country’s digital service consumers are new.