With competition in life insurance intensifying as new players are entering the fray, the players already in operation are betting on technology to woo discerning customers. | |
This is because while products offered by all insurers remain more or less the same, it is the service that turns out to be the key differential factor for acquiring and retaining business.
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So, insurance companies are increasingly investing in information technology for better services, faster delivery of policies and greater efficiency.
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Birla Sun Life Insurance Company, for instance, has invested approximately Rs 35 crore in technology so far.
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"This investment has been for centralising our operations and ensuring that all our systems are web-enabled on a common technology platform," said Anjana Grewal, vice-president (marketing and communication) of the company.
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Birla Sun Life recently invested $3,50,000 in implementing software called Automated Underwriting and Risk Analysis (AURA).
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"Our main objective over the long term is to quicken the turnaround time to one-two hours so that we can handle bigger volumes via speedy delivery of policies to customers," she added.
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Besides, Birla Sun Life is now contemplating imaging of documents, which will help the insurer scan and send images across centres instead of sending the documents in their actual physical forms.
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Max New York Life Insurance has already implemented an imaging system. Amit Kumar, senior vice-president (head of technology) said this is to ensure a paperless environment for issuing and renewing policies.
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The company has also implemented an automated underwriting software. It is now considering starting a portal for its over 13,000 agent advisors to enable them to access information (policies issued, premiums due, commission approved etc) related to their respective portfolios.
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The insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), no longer being complacent about its No 1 position in the sector, gave its website a facelift.
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H Nanda, regional manager (IT), LIC (south-central zone), said IT initiatives are helping the public sector life insurer to deal with competition effectively.
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Apart from deployment of technology for automating its internal processes, LIC today has an agents portal besides a customers' portal, wherein the users can get information related to their policies, pay premiums online and take printouts of the required receipts immediately.
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"We are also working on creating a data warehouse, which will help us analyse and mine data from all our centres. This will help us furnish critical information faster," Nanda said.
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| LIC has an annual budget of approximately Rs 90 crore for IT hardware, while the software that it uses is developed in-house. |
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