About Us – Gathercare

Founding Story of Gathercare

The Incident

In 2016, a 21 years old girl from Singapore fell into a comma and was admitted to Singapore hospital. Diagnosed with acute hepatitis, her parents had to contempt with the reality that their beloved needed no less than a liver transplant to improve her condition.

The Heart-Breaking Turn of Events

The family was hit with an equivalent of a whopping RM1.5 million bills to proceed with the procedure. That’s not the amount they could come up with in such a short notice. They went for the fundraising route but before they could even raise RM300k that's just enough for the deposit, the girl was already destined to meet her maker 2 weeks later on the 25th of February.

The Contemplation

The heart-breaking story had shed tears of many. Just why, does one has to suffer and only begin to raise fund when the urgency is already at peak? This thought was a genuine curiosity of a man named Gideon Leong.

The Light Bulb Moment

At this point, he realized that the episode was too painful to befall another soul, and something had to be done. Gideon went on to devise a plan. He worked with his manager on the drawing board, perfecting the concept for three years before the Life Engineering medical cost crowd-sharing platform was born.

The Creation

Life Engineering, a brainchild of Gideon and his like-minded partners was launched on March 2017 as a true crowd-sharing platform. Rebranding was done in 2020 turning Life Engineering into Gathercare. Gathercare aims to strengthen the community in order to untie the knot between health and money.

Our Vision

Everyone should have access to affordable medical treatment. Lives shall not be lost because they could not afford to pay their medical bills.

Our Mission

With the support from our Carers, we strive to bring this success to a higher level.

Develop a completely subsidised medical system
Breaking the vicious concept of Health = Money
Build a more comprehensive medical ecosystem
Promoting better health in our society through education of right lifestyle and prevention measures.

Meet Our Team Members

The professionals at Gathercare joined efforts to provide a smooth experience to ensure our Carers are as comfortable and worry-free as possible.

Gideon Leong

Founder & CEO

Gideon has more than 25 years of experience being a serial Entrepreneur. He founded 4 companies in total and was awarded with The Malaysia Top 10 new Startups recognition in 2016. He has also successfully raised over 12 Millions of funding in total from the Venture Capital & Equity Crowdfunding.

Raymond Cheung

Chief Risk Officer (Singapore)

Raymond has more than 18 years experience in actuarial & risk management. Prior to his 2 years in Regional Insurance Lead for Grab CRO of AIG Asia Pacific and Asia Capital Reinsurance Group. He is also an advisor of insurtech companies from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia & Indonesia.

Ravinder Singh

Reinsure & BD Advisor

Ravinder has more than 20 years experience in reinsurance at Swiss Re & Hannover Re Company. Prior to that he was a General Manager of Life & Health for South & South East Asia of Hannover Re. He is now a licensed established Financial Advisor in Malaysia.

Dr. Kamalathan Sappani

Medical Advisor

Dr. Kamalathan has more than 40 years experience in the medical industry. He graduated from JN Medical College Belgaum, Karnataka, India. He is the founder of the medical TPA, e-Mas.

Nicholas Yeo

Actuarial Advisor

Nicholas is a founder of an actuarial firm. He is a fellow of Institute and Faculty of Actuaries of UK & US and also a Chairperson of Professional Development Committee and Events Committee of Actuarial Society of Malaysia. He graduated with 1st honour from Cass Business School.

Words from our CEO

The Concept of Sharing Economy.

The concept of crowd sharing is the new economy! Since ancient times, the spirit of helping each other is seen as a virtue regardless of races.

Today, Gathercare uses the help of technology and creative business models while abiding to laws, we curated a perfect platform for us to help each other. Each Carer in the Gathercare Community has pledged to contribute a maximum RM50 per month (*Referring to age between 6 Y.O to 40 Y.O) in helping any soul within the community who are in need of medical treatments.

Every single cent that you contribute each month goes to helping someone who are sick and in need of treatment. By joining Gathercare, you are helping someone within the community every month. When you are sick or in need of treatment, other Carers will help you with your medical cost. This crowd sharing concept will definitely be the future of medical cost repayment solution.

There is no conflict of interest between the management (Gathercare) and the Carers on Gathercare platform regardless whether a case gets through or rejected. Gathercare does not gain any monetary advantage from every incoming case. The medical expenses are wholly funded by all Carers.

Therefore, in an instance where an admission application gets rejected, we’re not trying to save money, rather for the sake of fairness and justice to all, after all things considered. We must ensure that the Carers’ funds are protected from abuse and deceitful behaviour by anyone who’s trying to gain an unfair advantage from the Gathercare platform. Every terms and regulations set by Gathercare is to safeguard you and other Carers.

The invention of Gathercare stemmed from the idea to dampen the shock of unpredictable and expensive medical treatment costs faced by the people. We have calculated that as long as we are able to maintain the maximum variable Crowd Share level at RM50 a month (*Referring to age between 6 Y.O to 40 Y.O), it will be seen as affordable and will attract more people to the platform.

We will make sure that Gathercare is kept fair and transparent in order grow rapidly. As the community grows, we will see profit coming in which is derived from the Carers’ annual subscription fees.

Our Milestone

We grew up and expanded up till today with trust and confidence build from happy customers and cooperation from partners.

2017 - The Beginning

Gathercare began as Life Engineering in 2017, and was later rebranded to Gathercare in 2020. Since inception, it was never meant to be an insurance scheme or a medical card plan, rather a program to facilitate Crowd Sharing of community members' medical bills.

2017 - The First Big Hurdle

In May, after just two months from launching, Life Engineering found itself listed on the BNM Financial Consumer Alert List because at the time, it the concept was deemed too radical and potentially harming the medical protection industries.

2018 - Out Of The Woods

Life Engineering had been submitting its papers every month to be reviewed BNM. Finally in January 2018, Life Engineering was removed from the alert list when BNM realized that the program is not breaking any guideline for insurance and takaful products, because it's not in that category to begin with.

2019 - Crowd Sharing With Shariah Credence

Life Engineering engaged with Afsha Shariah Advisory, a shariah compliance body to audit every aspect of the program in accordance to shariah compliancy guidelines. In January, the program was awarded the Shariah Compliance Certificate, and since then is under constant monitoring to retain the compliancy.

2019 - Domestic Disinterest

Locally, the initial take up rate was underwhelming. The public was careful amidst the lingering news of the BNM alert list insertion. In June 2019, Life Engineering proposal was submitted to the Monetary Authority of Singapore to gauge acceptance abroad.

2019 - A Picture Is Worth A 1000 Sharers

In September, we witnessed the number of participation ticked from 3 digits to 4 digits

2019 - Marketing 2.0: The Rise Of Proxies

To accelerate with expansion, agent system was introduced to amass new registrations.

2020 - Engineering New Life For The Brand

In December, Gathercare was chosen as the new name for rebranding from Life Engineering. Due to many reasons, among them is to enliventhe core mission of the program. At the same time, the age group of participation was expanded to include those who are 41-45 years old.

2021 - Going Global, Not A Bridge Too Far

After many back and forth, documenting legal opinions and opening discussion paper with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and also some delays caused by the Covid pandemic, finally in December 2021 Gathercare now has a branch office in Singapore.

2022 - 5000 For Fighting

On the 15th of March 2022, Gathercare was celebrating it's 5 years in the market and coincidentally, we were also welcoming our first 5000th member into the community

2022 - An Opportunity Not To Be Passed

Bank Negara Malaysia came out with its Digital Insurance Takaful Operators discussion paper. It's an opening for Gathercare to participate in the upcoming DITO, to function under a fully regulated framework.