Anshuman Verma on DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance's digitisation journey

Private sector insurer DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance is on a digitisation drive to streamline its operations to serve customers more efficiently. Among several digital initiatives, it has created a chatbot to streamline customer queries and set up a microsite to enable easy renewal of policies.

In an interview with TechCircle, Anshuman Verma, the firm’s chief marketing and digital officer, spoke about how the insurance company is deploying emerging technologies and if it's generating returns from investments in artificial intelligence. Edited excerpts:

How are you using new technologies such as artificial intelligence to analyse data and make business decisions?

Customers today are used to buying products and services online, and insurance is no exception. To ensure that our customers perceive us as a digital leader, we have embarked on the digital transformation journey. To analyse data and make business decisions quickly, we use an interactive data visualisation tool called Tableau. It interprets data such that we can customise, integrate and deploy data and we can provide users with valuable insights through flexible visual analytics.

In which areas are you deploy emerging technologies to streamline processes?

We have used technology to improve the overall customer experience right from onboarding to claim settlement. We have launched various technological initiatives: the Ace app is our mobile-based application equipped with digital tools and packed with a ‘mobile office on the go’ for our agents. End-to-end proposal filing can be done through this app (e-proposal submission). It directly integrates with our policy admin system so that our operations team can instantly act on any case logged through this application. The app has significantly improved the turnaround time for agents to receive their commission. The commission details and the agent passbook are available in the Ace app.

We have introduced a pre-defined chatbot named RIA which allows users to purchase a policy by chatting. It can answer the frequently asked questions by itself. The chabot allows us to respond to customer queries in a speedy manner.

We have also created a renewal microsite, through which a customer can renew their policy by paying the premium either online or can have a cheque picked up from their doorstep.

How much of the claims process have you automated?

We live by the motto that a claim delayed is akin to a claim denied. In order to serve our customers better, we have simplified and streamlined the online claims procedure. We have a seamless Online Dengue Shield Claim process in place which is easy to use anytime, anywhere. The process has been designed to settle all valid claims in the least possible time.

Tell us about any blockchain or related technology that you are working on.

Currently, we are working on an AI-based bot which will answer a customer’s queries pre and post the purchase of the policy.

Do you expect to see any returns on your investment in emerging technologies?

We use marketing analytics to make informed decisions whether it is related to media spends for lead generation and conversion or people utilisation. It helps us optimise the return on investment and maximise business efficiency. The tool also offers us insights which help us identify target customers. We accordingly design the right marketing campaigns to suit different customer segments.