Insurance Goes Paperless

Video-based tools are providing face-to-face customer interaction for selling insurance policies and claim settlements

- Nirmala Konjengbam

The COVID-19 outbreak has not only bruised the economy, but has also changed the business dynamics. However, the insurance industry has smartly adapted to the challenging environment by going paperless, which is reflective in their growth.

It is only natural that life and health insurance products witness a surge in demand during a health crisis. The insurers had to be ready to fulfil all the demands digitally with social distancing. The investments that insurers had made over the years in Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital payments, and sales platforms proved to be vital but potential innovations were introduced to make things function.

One of the first steps towards being digitally-able was to empower the employees.

“The first step was to ensure all our employees are safe and we enabled them to work from home on a short notice. App-based tools for servicing customers, cloud telephony for renewal calling, inbound emails, and video-based servicing were handled by staff, restricted to their homes,” recalls Parvez Mulla, Chief Operating Officer, HDFC Life Insurance.

The entire policy-life cycle has been digitised by insurers, including underwriting claims, to ensure customer’s support is not hampered.

“Our IVRS facility has been moved to homes of call centre agents so that customer queries can be addressed without delay. Our servicing and underwriting teams are also enabled to work-from-home so that they can continue to do necessary post-sale and underwriting activities,” claims Yusuf Pachmariwala, EVP and Head of Operations, Tata AIA Life Insurance.