Kotak General Insurance to use AI to automate vehicle inspection

Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Limited (Kotak General Insurance) has said that it will automate the vehicle inspection with artificial intelligence (AI) based technology for the renewal of vehicles' insurance policies. 

Kotak General Insurance is a 100% subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. and caters to the growing non-life insurance segment in India. 

Kotak General Insurance has partnered with US-based AI-assisted vehicle damage assessment firm, Inspektlabs to automate the vehicle inspection process. Under the AI-based inspection process, during policy renewals, customers can capture photos or videos of their vehicles and upload them on the cloud-based App. An automated inspection report covering damages, if any, gets generated within a few seconds of uploading the photos/videos.  

The automated process replaces humans in repetitive work at a very high accuracy level that saves cost and increases customer satisfaction by reducing the time required to renew a car insurance policy. The technology also helps to detect fraud based on the pictures and videos uploaded, thereby aiding the underwriting process.  

Suresh Sankaranarayanan, Chief Technology Officer, Kotak General Insurance Company Limited said, "The do-it-yourself (DIY) process will help enhance customer experience and reduce turnaround time and frauds.”  

He added, "Over the past few years AI has become a mainstay for several of our businesses, and we hope to serve our customers better with this new technology addition.” 

Insurance sector that was earlier considered a laggard in tech adoption has speeded up new technology adoption, partly driven by the global pandemic that prompted almost every sector to move online. Insurance players are also realising that embedding AI across the insurance value chain can deliver undeniable and compelling value to their business. 

As such, investments in AI capabilities by Indian companies are growing at a CAGR of 30% and poised to reach $881 million by 2023, according to a June 2022 report by NASSCOM. The report further said that AI will aggregate a value-add worth $450-500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025 and over 60% of this is expected to come from the domains such as banking and insurance, energy and utilities, automotive manufacturing, and healthcare, to name a few.