Improve technology for policyholder servicing, says Bharti AXA CFO Alok Roongta

The financial services industry was one of the first to embrace the technological revolution. But the technology was only used for security and to help their distribution force in selling. The impact it could have on customer servicing was fully explored for the first time through ATMs. Today, ATMs have revolutionised retail banking and way banks think about customers and vice versa.

The insurance industry, too, has embraced technology to improve its distribution force which is very critical considering the nature of the product and the high churn rates of employees in the distribution
force. But when it comes to policyholder servicing, technology usage is at a very nascent stage.

By nature, brand loyalty in the insurance is very low. Only half of the customers purchasing insurance today will buy from their current provider again. The main reason behind this is the poor claims processing experience. This presents an opportunity, albeit a challenging one, for the industry to improve the customers' experience not just during claims processing about at various other touch points.

Some companies have realised this and are making significant in-roads insetting things in place to improve the policyholders' service experience. Much like the ATM technology, self-service options which save time and are easily accessible are the ones which have a huge impact on the policyholder's experience with the company. Self-service options like hassle-free online purchase with minimal documentation, using of mobile technology for communication have an instant and huge impact on how the customer looks at an insurance company. One good example of this is the success of the fund value through missed call service Bharti AXA Life has started, using which a policyholder can get his fund value through an SMS by giving a missed call to a designated toll free number.

Further to such self-service options, a variety of architectural changes at the back-end like tracking repeat requests by a customer and moving towards a stage of first time right, analytics to identify policyholders with high tendency of delayed payment of premiums and pushing them on auto payment mode through tools like ECS are making the lives of not just policyholders but also the companies a lot easier.

All these are however, just the tip of the iceberg so far as the things that can be done in this regard. A lot can be done in the areas of building transparency, trust amongst policyholders and prospective customers considering the negative sentiments about the insurance industry as a legacy of the ULIP era. Technology, especially the ones with ease of accessibility like mobile will be the key to achieve these.

The author is Chief Financial Officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company