Sarv Girn, Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer, MLC Life Insurance

In the wake of the Royal Commission, the life insurance industry has an opportunity to “hit the reset button” and capitalise on new technologies that could positively transform our relationships with customers.

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Regulatory oversight and governance of the industry is increasing, with the implementation of the life insurance framework, the ASIC claims review, the Life Insurance Code of Practice, two parliamentary inquiries and, most recently, the Royal Commission. All of these have driven a lot of improvements in the industry however customer trust is at a record low. This has signalled a reset in the way we all do business and how we respond to customers’ needs.

How is MLC Life Insurance reimagining itself?

For us this starts with a promise, trust and doing what’s right for our customers and partners. Customers are giving us their trust and they want us to be around for the long term. We will always strive to do the right thing; and if we get it wrong, we will own up and make things right. We demonstrate this through our behaviours when we engage with customers and partners – aligning with our ambition is to be Australia’s leading and most trusted life insurer.

To support this, we’re focusing on three success drivers:

• Co-creating solutions and processes through design thinking with distributors and customers;
• Establishing strategic partners with global leaders and learning from them; and
• Placing an importance on data, especially data that defines life styles through things like internet of things and health and wellbeing.

Ultimately, it is about trust, fairness, doing what’s right for the customer, which is lived throughout our company.

As we transform ourselves, what possibilities arise from this?

• Firstly we delivered LifeView, our new Group portal for superannuation funds and their members as well as trustees and administrators. Following it’s launched we’re continuing to deliver new digital capability for group customers through LifeView and our Digital Underwriting Platform.
• We’ve reduced our underwriting questionnaire by 20%.
• 40% of online applications in LifeView are now accepted immediately.
• We continue to see an increase in LifeView’s online underwriting applications being lodged by our group clients.  

Our focus behind these platforms is empathy for the customer. There is a need to not just digitise interactions but to also maintain the human element as part of a life insurance experience. What does it take to do this in a balanced and genuine way?

The answer lies in IQ, EQ and DQ and finding the right balance between each.  We all know what IQ is when it comes to intelligence quotient in engagement and EQ is about the emotional quotient.

We are focussed on DQ, the digital quotient. This is where we will have the right people engage with customers when a human interaction is necessary. When a customer requires a digital experience, they can go online and engage our platform.

Our possibilities are about moving away from a transactional experience and moving towards a transformational experience that sits alongside the life insurance journey of our customers.

We have reimagined life insurance in our transformation. We believe in building trust, in an authentic way. We’re committed to lifting the wellbeing of our customers; not just providing them with policies.