Data will characterise ‘winning’ insurance companies

Applying data to the whole customer journey and not just the end claims process will be a key characteristic of “winning” life insurance companies in the future, as well as a full customer/digital transformation, according to a panel discussion.

Speaking at a panel at the Financial Services Council (FSC) Life Insurance Summit on Wednesday, Damien Mu, AIA chief executive, said the industry needed to go through a genuine transformation around customer and digital transformation.

“Not just about a front-end application for insurance, but a genuine digital transformation,” Mu said.

“We’re going to have to be willing in the future to simplify propositions with total permanent disability (TPD) and trauma; we need to be talking very different types of benefits and they need to be living and preventative benefits.

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“Insurance can’t be something that happens when something bad happens; it’s going to be there to protect people and deliver on that promise, but it actually has to be a living benefit, which means being engaged with customers day in/day out to help them live healthier, longer lives.”

Sharon Ooi, Swiss Re Australia and New Zealand head, said: “If you look at the digital transformation in Asia and there’s a huge change in terms of what they’ve taken with data analytics, in terms of being part of the customer journey and not just at the end when claiming has occurred”.

Simon Swanson, Clearview managing director, said as an industry it would help to get access to the health insurance market.

“We are almost the only country in the world where life insurers don’t deliver some kind of health benefit,” Swanson said.

“That would be a good customer outcome – and I know there’s a lot of politics in that.”

Mu said: “In markets in other nations, life and health go together and from a customer perspective, they don’t understand two different systems, so there’s some work for us to do”.