Press Release
Press Release Live Our Purpose — Bowtie’s Vision, Mission & Purpose
About a year ago, we performed and started an exercise to refresh our values and to elaborate our mission vision, and values.
TLDR?Read our AI summary
Try NowSince our launch in 2019, our team had been growing rapidly. While active expansion is a good thing, we were, and still are, aware of how our culture and spirit may get lost if we do not tackle this proactively.
We also want to make sure that the core principles and values we are promoting are up-to-date and can truly guide us through our day-to-day tasks and important decisions making or strategy planning.
Instead of coming up with something from the vacuum or just iterating/ rewording the existing materials- we believe that our people should all have a say and be involved — The actual process could be the content for another post and we will focus on the “outcomes” from our exercise.
After a few rounds of surveys (all, managers, foundering members) and interviews to ask them about what they appreciate/think is working or not working and the quality of people they admire, and what we aspire to be. We found that there is a strong and recurring theme of “mission”, “making an impact”, “working for a good cause“, and “working with nice/helpful colleagues“.
With the materials we gathered, we proceeded to polish and refine our vision, mission, and values.
We half-jokingly used this slogan when we got our license in December 2018. We were open-minded about refreshing this, but from our survey results and months of reflecting on our “why”, we decided to stay with this because it says what we mean:
We know insurance can be simple and affordable. Our track record is showing insurance doesn’t need pyramid sales schemes to push down our society’s throat. Bowtie as a mission-driven insurer changing our system through modern technology – to make insurance good again.
After figuring out the why, we came to look at the what — what we want to achieve and what we are building.
We may not be the largest in 5 years. But when people think “health insurance”, Bowtie is the first that comes to mind. Bowtie will define the category of being a health insurer.
This mindshare is ours to win. Bowtie is our chance to build a fast-growing, iconic company where great careers are started and accelerated.
Why Health Insurance?
We chose health insurance as our first step and battlefield because health is one of our most important things in life. We believe everyone should have health insurance, even before you have a family. Healthcare can be big and expensive — most people can afford to lose their luggage, but many families can’t afford a million dollars for cancer treatment.
It is easy to have a grand mission, strong vision, and a nice purpose, and, not very nicely put, have our heads in the cloud, dreaming of big changes. However, the inconvenient truth is that 90% of startups fail – we survive by being the exception, not the average.
Our default is to be killed — if we deliver “average marketing” we will be dead, if we deliver “average engineering” we will be dead.
In such a precarious situation, we need to keep our feet on the ground and be pragmatic, and it is important to agree and align on values that accurately reflect and guide both our mindset and our actions. And we arrived at our 5 core values — own it, for the greater good, get one piece done, craftsmanship and be kind.
At Bowtie, ownership runs deeper than mere responsibility—it’s about taking complete accountability for our actions and outcomes.
When we say we own our work, we embrace both successes and failures with equal measure.
We don’t just complete tasks; we anticipate needs, identify potential challenges, and proactively seek solutions.
This means staying committed to seeing things through, even when obstacles arise. Whether it’s a customer inquiry, a team project, or a company-wide initiative, we take personal responsibility for delivering excellence.
We understand that true ownership means going beyond what’s explicitly asked of us and doing what needs to be done for the best possible outcome.
Our commitment to the greater good transcends individual achievements. We understand that our strongest impact comes from collective success rather than personal victories.
This means sometimes stepping outside our comfort zones to support colleagues, even when it’s not our direct responsibility. We celebrate team wins as our own and recognize that by lifting others, we all rise higher.
This collaborative spirit creates a positive ripple effect throughout our organization, fostering an environment where everyone is motivated to contribute beyond their immediate roles.
When we put the team’s success first, we create sustainable growth and meaningful impact that benefits all stakeholders—our customers, colleagues, and the broader community.
We believe in the power of tangible progress over perfect planning. Rather than getting caught in analysis paralysis, we focus on taking meaningful steps forward.
This approach allows us to learn from real-world feedback and adapt our solutions accordingly.
We break down complex challenges into manageable pieces and tackle them one at a time, ensuring we maintain momentum while staying grounded in reality. This principle helps us avoid the common pitfall of over-planning and keeps us agile and responsive to changing needs.
By focusing on completing one piece at a time, we build confidence through action and create a foundation for continuous improvement.
Our commitment to craftsmanship is reflected in every aspect of our work. We strive for excellence not just in customer-facing elements, but in every backend process and internal system.
This attention to detail distinguishes us in the insurance industry, where trust is paramount. We continuously benchmark ourselves against global standards, pushing beyond local expectations to achieve international excellence.
This means investing in our skills, staying current with industry best practices, and maintaining high standards in everything we do.
Our craftsmanship is a testament to our respect for our customers’ trust and our commitment to delivering superior value.
Kindness at Bowtie means more than just being nice — it’s about fostering genuine, respectful relationships built on honesty and mutual growth.
We believe in having difficult conversations when necessary, delivered with empathy and constructive intent. This approach helps us maintain high performance standards while building strong, supportive relationships.
We extend this kindness to our customers through transparent communication and genuine care for their needs.
By choosing kindness in our daily interactions, we create a positive work environment that encourages open dialogue, mutual support, and continuous improvement.
It was a good exercise to remind ourselves of who we are, who we aspire to be, and, more importantly, why we are.
Like other successful companies, such as Amazon, Facebook etc.., having a clear mission and purposes that our people can truly relate to and act upon is core to our existence- a company is anything but its people, and it is important to make sure that people we hire are proud of and care about what we are to achieve together.
Note: if you are looking for opportunities to work with a mission/purpose-driven organization and can resonate with ours — we are hiring across the board.
While we are very happy with what we arrived at, we believe that these principles might need to be fine-tuned from time to time. Indeed, we had conducted small group lunch sessions (again, the topic for another blog :)) to talk about and listen to what our team thinks about the above, what confused them, and how these have impacted their work lives (or even personal lives!).
With these we will keep evolving when appropriate to make sure that we can proudly and truly live our purposes and to make insurance good again!
© 2025 Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited. All rights reserved.
