Fast-Tracking Fintechs
The insurance sector has been going through a major transformation. This is the need of the hour. The pandemic is pushing some and the government is taking advantage to revamp the sector.
Representatives from i nsurance sector and technology partner discuss the tools with which they are bringing in transformation. The tone of the discussion was how to fast track in the insurtech sector.
Babu Nair: General Insurance has made several landmark achievements in the field of fintech insurance. What is the vision behind the success of GO-DIGIT?
Vijay Kumar: Our operations started in 2018. The founders of the company are giants in their own ways. Sufficient capital and availability of skilled people helped us to grow. Expert knowledge of the available technology across the globe was also the key factor. Instead of making big or major changes we tried bringing in small changes that would bring the difference.
The lawyers or underwriters draft a complex insurance terms and conditions. Hence insurance companies are not trusted very much. We at GO-DIGIT simplified the wordings of the drafts. A simplified customer journey was paved so that our path with customers and partners gets easy to travel.
My experience is that the partners are taken for granted by many in this industry. The customer journey should also help the partners grow along with the insurance company. We initiated technology enhanced simplification. The partners are now confident of our processes. That has resulted in longer partnerships and greater business opportunity to both.
We have started using bots and data sheet for issuing bulk insurance. We have a large integration with API partners. We have empowered our partners for taking quick decisions so that customer disputes can be settled faster. The processes which used to take couple of days can now be done in couple of hours.
Babu: We know that new generation BFSI is being built on technology. What is the kind of support, do the new age digital insurance firms will need?
Gaurav: YOTTA stands for limitless scale. The traditional way of doing business is installing hosting co-location services. We can provide one of the best services in country in this sector. We have created Asia’s largest and world’s second largest data centre. Our aim is to support Government of India’s digital initiative.
Secondly, we provide cloud services. We understand the need to adopt cloudbased services. Cloud allows the companies to scale, innovate and at faster pace. Now most of the companies are adopting cloud for resilience purpose. Armed with years of expertise we are ready to support new age fintech company. We can offer flexible private or public or hybrid cloud services and develop design according to company’s requirements.
We understand that future belongs to co-existence. On frame technology is
going to co-exist with other technologies. We can make tailor made offerings to companies like GO-DIGIT. YOTTA is completely geared up for such requirements.
Babu: The insurance providers are also trying to simplify the process. How are you simplifying technology?
Gaurav: We have vertical support teams - this is essential for addressing such requirements. Our team of professionals have very focused sales engagement approach specific to the market. BFSI is one such market which needs special attention. After building the fundamentals we are trying to build an ecosystem. We are in constant touch with industry specific firms and understand their constant requirement changes. We also have strategic tie ups for better delivery of technology. We also collaborate with AI providers, bot providers and wrap as one package to our customers.
The company should be very careful in investing in technology. We can encapsulate all the technology that they wish to adopt. Using our cloud expertise, the client can just scale up and down on seasonal basis. We can offer elasticity in solutions. Our sales team is very focused. We keep an eye on the trends and do strategic partnerships and try to make our users have smooth transition.
Babu: The customer looks at the claim percentage and how can the insurance company gives personalized services. How have you been taking the help of technology combined with the business skill to achieve this goal?
Vijay: For policy issuance and claims we have been using bots successfully. AI also comes handy to give enhanced results. Majority of pre-inspection for vehicle and other insurances happen via mobile. AI helps us to detect acceptable and unacceptable cases. Through remote claim settlements we have been able to settle 90% of the claims. Active use of video calls has helped us settle the claims. We have enabled the agents to settle the claims without the involvement of garage or survey. That is the strength of our backend.
Since, all the processes from issuance of the policy to settlement to instalment payment is digital, it is easy for us to take the monthly MIS. We are the only insurance company that has record of every stage of the claims.
Our product ‘trip delay’ has airline data is integrated with our system. If the flight is delayed by more than 75 min the claim gets triggered automatically. These kind of information and tools that we are using takes customer experience to next level.
Babu: In your industry, the assurance the customer needs to have on the security of his data and that it is in safe hands is very important. How are you building the trust among the customers especially in BFSI sector?
Gaurav: We completely believe that security and compliance must be embedded into the design of the service offerings. For both cloud or any other technology security is the key. YOTTA offers multi layered security. We had in place a lot of certifications and critical infrastructure. Application based, web and cloud-based security all come under the journey of security.
From planning, discovering and identifying impending threats, we invest a lot of resources in security. We also have technology for removal and recovery from the threats. A lot of thought goes in planning security for our customers.
We all are living and working in an unbound enterprise kind of scenario. We need to take care of end-points security.
Babu: You have lot of firsts to your credit. What are the technological and regulatory transformations that you would desire to see to reach insurance to maximum number of people?
Vijay: The regulators have changed their approach significantly during the pandemic. By allowing digital policy documents, proposal and claim forms. For our claims we suggested on going completely digital unlike the traditional method. Our claimants could voice record and we were accepting that. We had our share of struggle to convince the regulator for such changes. A lot more reforms have come in place. Digital forms are now the new normal. We see a focus from regulators and Government to improve the insurance sector.
Babu: What technology ecosystem are you building for the future insurtech and fintech companies?
Gaurav: We work closely with insurance companies. And understand the solutions that this sector needs. There are technologies available for faster claim settlements. We are extensively using AI and behavioural economics to reduce the fraud detection. We are partnering with such service providers and trying to give the best offerings to our BFSI partners.
Babu: How do you see the future of the insurance sector?
Vijay: We see a lot of changes happening. Our penetration when compared to most of the Asian countries is less. There is long way to go. We are expecting more changes to come in this sector, for example in motor insurance third-party claim. This might change the whole landscape of motor insurance. In the health insurance sector, the government is showing a lot of interest in collating together all the data of patients. It is setting to revamp the health insurance sector. In next 2-3 years, complete transformation of the insurance industry is expected.
Babu: Most of the solutions are going to happen from versatile technology. This looks like a perfect time to be in the technology and insurance space. We can look forward to growth and revolution in this sector. All the very best.