AI and Cloud: Driving Digital Transformation in Insurance

Customer experience is at the core of everything they do because their customers ensure their relevance in the marketplace. They’ve invested significantly in providing the customer is always at the centre of the operations, shared Kayzad Hiramanek, Chief Operating Officer, Edelweiss Life Insurance, in an exclusive interaction with Srajan Agarwal of Elets News Network (ENN).

Edelweiss Life Insurance has been recognised for its innovative approach in the insurance sector. Can you elaborate on some of the recent key technological innovations implemented at Edelweiss Life Insurance?

Over the last couple of years, Edelweiss Life Insurance has been working on a large-scale organisational transformation project called UDAAN, which means “to take flight.” This initiative focuses on three main areas: enhancing distributor experience and ease of doing business, improving customer experience with seamless service at their fingertips, and ensuring personalised interactions so that both distributors and customers feel the experience is tailored to them.

For distributor experience, we have two significant projects. The first is a needs and investment advisory tool called YOU Unlimited (U2). It enables distributors to converse in- depth with customers about their long-term investment needs, protection requirements, and financial goals. This tool facilitates structured discussions, ensuring customers receive personalised advice rather than a generic sales pitch.

When dealing with life insurance agents, customers may hesitate, wondering if they are hearing what they need to know or just what the agent wants to convey. The U2 tool addresses this by laying out all necessary details clearly, from investment needs to policy benefits. This leads to generating multiple solution versions, such as a needs analysis or business illustration, which then transitions into the digitised proposal processing phase.

The second phase involves our policy proposal and issuance workflow, called PRAGATI. This digitised system ensures that only the necessary tasks are assigned to the distributor based on the specific proposal characteristics, using rules and AI engines to minimise workload. For example, declarations and document submissions are streamlined, and some policies can be issued within 30 minutes through our BOLT system. About 20% of our policies are issued this quickly, and this percentage is growing.

Additionally, we use a business-in-a-boX application for distributors called SINDAGI Unlimited. This app helps distributors manage their business, including agent recruitment, training, daily MIS, and business insights, all from their mobile phones.

The final major project in this transformation is the Dataverse, a cloud-based AI-driven business intelligence tool. This system consolidates all company data and regulatory submissions into a single source, providing a unified truth across the organisation. While the initial elements of this transformation are in place, ZINDAGI Unlimited and the Dataverse will be fully implemented in this financial year.

Process optimisation is crucial for improving efficiency and reducing costs in the insurance industry. Can you discuss the specific strategies and technologies Edelweiss Life Insurance has adopted to optimise its processes?

Process optimisation at Edelweiss Life Insurance has multiple facets. The first major focus is on data automation. We have diligently worked on ensuring our database is accurate and up-to- date. Using this data, we run several models to improve efficiency. For example, our BOLT system, a rules-based policy issuance engine, evaluates each customer proposal individually. This system reduces the distributor’s workflow by about 50%, ensuring only relevant information is requested.

We also utilise models like the propensity to pay renewals, which identifies customers likely to pay without needing reminders, allowing us to focus our efforts more effectively. Additionally, we have streamlined our claims experience. Our Insta claim settlement process can resolve low-risk claims within 24 hours, minimising the need for further investigation.

Our intuitive workflows, such as the PRAGATI system and various underwriting processes, reduce time for our staff and enhance efficiency. Our robust customer service platform, SAKSHAM, provides detailed information to customer service agents, ensuring they can quickly resolve interactions in a branch or at a call centre. This system is also extended to our virtual platforms, including our website, customer portal, and a recently launched WhatsApp platform, which allows customers to access services conveniently.

We have also invested heavily in cloud infrastructure, with about 60% of our applications now on the cloud. The cloud offers several benefits, including scalability, enhanced security, reduced maintenance costs, and increased productivity. It allows us to multitask and go to market faster, making our organisation more efficient and responsive to customer needs.

Overall, our optimisation efforts in data management, workflows, business rules, and cloud infrastructure ensure we provide our customers a lean, efficient, and personalised experience.

Customer experience is a vital aspect of the insurance business. How is Edelweiss Life Insurance leveraging technology to enhance customer experience? Can you provide examples of technological solutions that have significantly improved customer satisfaction and engagement?

Customer experience is at the core of everything we do because our customers ensure our relevance in the marketplace. We’ve invested significantly in ensuring the customer is always at the centre of our operations. For instance, we streamline the process during the proposal stage by not requiring excessive documentation and identifying high-quality customer profiles upfront to issue proposals instantly, eliminating delays.

Additionally, during the servicing stage, we maintain ongoing engagement with our short-term and long-term customers to keep their details updated. This is crucial because long-term contracts often lead to customers and insurers losing track of each other, resulting in issues like unclaimed balances. I’m proud to share that we’ve had the lowest unclaimed balances for the last three to four years, with only 50 lakhs unclaimed as of March 31st, compared to others who have thousands of crores unclaimed. This highlights our strong customer engagement.

We also focus on the renewal experience, ensuring customers are reminded to pay on time to stay protected and informing them of company benefits. For example, we recently announced bonuses on our participating products, and for the past 12 years, we’ve consistently provided bonuses at about 8%, the higher end recommended by our guidelines. We communicate this to our customers to encourage them to stay invested with us. Moreover, we ensure customers receive their premium receipts promptly for tax purposes and that their bank details are correctly updated at maturity so payments are made on time.

Advanced technology platforms support our customer engagement. Our CRM platform, SAKHSHAM, offers a comprehensive 360-degree view of the customer, allowing us to know our customers’ needs and history without repeatedly asking them. Our organisation is fully integrated, with all touchpoints linked to SAKHSHAM, including our website and WhatsApp platform. This integration means that a customer’s last interaction is recorded, so we don’t need to ask for information, enhancing their experience repeatedly.

At the claims stage, we’ve introduced Instant Claim, where straightforward cases with a long history of premium payments are settled on the same day. Currently, 98% of our claims are settled within 15 days, demonstrating our efficiency and the sensitivity with which we handle claims, recognising the importance of these critical moments for our customers.

Cloud computing has become an essential component in the modern insurance industry. How has Edelweiss Life Insurance integrated cloud technology into its operations? What benefits have you observed in terms of scalability, security, and cost-efficiency?

Cloud technology forms the foundation of our organisation’s operations. ApproXimately 60% of our applications are cloud-native, and we utilise one of the top cloud service providers globally. This allows us to scale up efficiently and down in response to business cycles, maintaining efficiencies and minimising capital expenditure. This is particularly important as insurers must closely monitor management expenses and operational expenditures.

The cloud offers several benefits, including modular product design, which enables us to test multiple versions of new products in different environments to determine the best configurations for our customers. Our analytics and models are also developed on the cloud, allowing us to leverage various attributes and combinations. Cloud technology also streamlines our storage needs, particularly for transactional data, reducing costs.

One significant cloud-based project we’re undertaking is the dataverse. This initiative ensures that all data, reporting, and business intelligence needs are managed effectively. Our cloud-based approach is yielding significant benefits, demonstrating the value of our investment and hard work in this area.

The insurance industry is undergoing a digital transformation. Can you describe Edelweiss Life Insurance’s digital transformation journey? What the key milestones and strategic decisions shaped this journey, and what future developments do you anticipate in this space?

Our UDAAN strategies aim to achieve specific goals by the end of this financial year. They focus on enhancing distributor and customer experiences with a strong emphasis on personalisation. However, the scope extends beyond these areas to include other organisational stakeholders, especially those involved in the balanced scorecard approach.

For example, our strategies address shareholders by providing clear visibility into business metrics and ensuring regulators receive timely and accurate statutory reports. We’ve been developing this strategy for the past three to four years, and it will come to fruition this financial year. It will transform us into a digitally-led organisation with high productivity, including productive employees and personalised interactions across all touchpoints and stakeholders.

What are your views on the insurance for all by 2047?

“Insurance for All by 2047” is a fantastic initiative launched by the regulator, featuring the Bima Trinity: Bima Vistaar and Bima Sugam. We are actively involved in all three components and are looking forward to participating wholeheartedly. This initiative provides a significant opportunity for us as a relatively smaller company than others in the industry. It helps us increase our visibility to a larger audience and allows us to explore territories where we are not currently present.

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Moreover, it opens up new segments for us, such as the ability to develop women-centric distribution of products tailored to specific segments we currently do not serve. This initiative is a fantastic opportunity for us as an insurer, and we fully support and intend to participate in it.

Looking ahead, what emerging technologies do you believe will have the most significant impact on the insurance industry? How is Edelweiss Life Insurance preparing to adopt and integrate these technologies to stay ahead of the curve and meet evolving customer expectations?

The first primary focus is on our AI-based ecosystem. AI is crucial in developing highly personalised products tailored to specific profiles. It significantly enhances our fraud detection capabilities, de-risks our onboarding process, and strengthens our underwriting practices. Additionally, AI improves the overall experience in policy renewals and claims processing, which I previously detailed.

The second area involves bot-based processes, such as those used in WhatsApp or image-based CRRP processes, which streamline various operations. Furthermore, big data analytics are pivotal in analysing large datasets to identify key attributes and peculiarities within customer segments, enabling us to make intelligent decisions. Thanks to new regulations, we are also actively exploring IoT, particularly in health monitoring, to develop innovative combination products that incorporate health and wellness aspects.

Lastly, generative AI is another area on our radar. We are investigating how it can transform product design and create virtual offices online, allowing customers to interact with us without needing to visit a physical location. While these are still early days for us, we are keenly exploring the potential of generative AI.