Technology has changed the way life insurance companies serve policyholders by making the process of selling policies and settling claims safe, secure and hassle free. Today, life insurance companies are offering convenient and user-friendly digital touch-points to customers to access information on their policies as well as conduct self-service transactions.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is the first life insurance company to officially offer WhatsApp as a customer service channel. Besides, customers can also use the Company’s mobile app, Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot and its hyper-personalised website to initiate and conclude service requests.
In the last decade, and especially since the pandemic, the life insurance industry has been using new-age technology solutions to transform the way products are sold. The process of using technology to make the customer journey safe and secure gathered more speed post the Covid-19 pandemic as people preferred to engage both for buying and claims from the safety and comfort of their homes.
Technology-backed innovations since then have made the entire insurance journey more accessible and convenient for consumers. Most insurance companies have digitalised their processes – from finding new customers to policy issuance to premium payment to claims settlement – thus, offering a virtually paperless and contactless services at the touch of a finger.
The industry is adopting a wide range of digital solutions to better understand what customers require, improve interactions with them, and deliver faster and superior services. Digitalisation has enabled life insurance companies to be more responsive to customer needs and cater to their instant gratification needs, thereby earning their trust. It has also increased insurance spread in the country.
ICICI Prudential Life’s hyper-personalisation journey is based on the 3 V’s of Voice, Video and Vernacular. Introduction of the ‘Smart Doc’ module and video-based medical underwriting has made it easier to onboard customers, especially during these times of social distancing. The Company is also using an AI-powered speech recognition tool called ‘Humanoid’ for renewal premium reminder calling. The multi-lingual Humanoid solution can reach out to over 50,000 customers in an hour reminding them to pay their renewal premiums.
“In today’s highly competitive landscape digital technologies such as real-time analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping us to offer a personalised experience to customers based on their transaction history. For instance, when the renewal of a policy of a customer holding multiple policies is due, that particular policy will appear first in their mobile app cart. This serves as a convenient reminder to make the renewal premium payment before the due date”, says Ganessan Soundiram, Chief Technology Officer, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.
In the wake of Covid-19, online and digital platforms have eliminated paper-based on-boarding of customers to a large extent. Distributors have been trained to use digital tools to complete the selling process in a matter of minutes. In the coming years with the help of technology ICICI Prudential Life is working towards offering an end-to-end digital fulfillment journey.