In the last few years, India witnessed how digital is transforming the insurance sector in the country, as well as worldwide. Digital has been phenomenal in bridging the traditional insurance gaps; reducing the turnaround time for insurance buying, serving and claim settlements; increasing consumer outreach to smaller parts of the country.
As digital technologies continue to evolve, the industry is unlocking potential new opportunities to mitigate risks and make insurance more resilient. With more and more access to real-time and granular data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in insurance, are opening up new possibilities for assessing risk pools, underwriting, claim management, risk assessment and providing personalised consumer experiences.
While digitization has been very convenient in fast-tracking processes and easing out the mechanisms involved in the end-to-end insurance process, guiding consumers, building trust and credibility, and building that human emotional connect has been more favourable through insurance advisors. Chat-bots, IVR (Interactive Voice Response System), can address consumer queries and grievances to a limited extent.
India’s 35 lakh (Approx.) strong insurance advisor community, holds the backbone of insurance. They play a pivotal role in creating awareness, guiding consumers with the right insurance products, servicing them and addressing claim settlement issues. The functionality of digital insurance can be enhanced when there is an advisor for insurance guidance around the procedures, documentation and claim settlements.
In fact, the industry is now working towards joining the two most powerful forces, digital and insurance advisors. The digitally enabled insurance advisors have already disrupted the category, resulting in huge growth in sales, better underwriting, smooth claim processing and desired customer service.
By harnessing digital insurance and empowering advisors, the insurance industry can witness growth by at least 30-35% in the short term and make insurance agents three times more productive and efficient. The insurance industry, in the coming times, can perform at its best, when the insurance advisors are empowered and trained to implement digital in the optimum way.
Indraneel Chatterjee, Co Founder & COO, RenewBuy
