Bits, Bytes & Benefits: The Digital Insurance Shift

In today's rapidly accelerating world, where AI and ML reign supreme, staying competitive and remaining ahead of the curve hinges on one constant: innovation and the insurance sector stands at the forefront of this innovation. It's a realm where traditional policies and paperwork give way to the dynamic fusion of data and coverage; where bytes and algorithms are crafting the future of protection.  Insurance isn't just a service; it's a smart, responsive, and highly personalized experience.

In an insightful conversation with Madhu Malhotra, Chief Technology Officer at Zuno General Insurance (formerly Edelweiss GI), Minu Sirsalewala, Executive Editor – Special Projects, explores how Zuno is at the forefront of leveraging cutting-edge technology within the insurance sector. Madhu also delves into how together; they are driving forward a future where the harmonious integration of security and digitization not only sets a precedent but also maximizes the potential of technology-driven innovation.

Excerpts…

Can you elaborate on the key areas where digital transformation is most impacting the insurance sector?

Consumer Internet-basede-commerce has brought numerous disruptive technologies to the fore along with raising customer expectations everywhere. The past 3 years of Covid along with the recent increase in regulatory oversight have made Digital Transformation a necessity in every Industry including Insurance. To stay relevant and viable, Insurers need to make urgent, bold and strategic changes in how technology will play a part in their way of doing business.

An omni-channel Digital Transformation strategy adoption which touches and binds all areas of an insurer’s customer’s lifecycle is the need of the hour. It starts with how a customer perceives the brand, how seamless customer onboarding is, how effective and quick servicing happens for endorsements and claims, how the organisation keeps the customer engaged with key information and updates and how smoothly the policies are renewed. In addition to this, Insurers will need to enhance their infrastructure and information security strategy to include cloud and cybersecurity for higher availability and better privacy protection of the digital consumer data.

Investing in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning areas of Technology are also imminent business choices that need to be taken up by insurers.

According to you as a CTO, does technology now serve as a revenue generator, or does it remain primarily a business enabler within the insurance sector?

Tech heads in the insurance domain previously focused on ensuring that the various components of their information systems were functioning well. But insurance as a business has evolved over the last 5 years and many organizations, both new and incumbent, have adopted technology as a driver to their business strategy.

Technology currently is at the center of delivering the core business for insurance and thus acts as a major contributor to the topline instead of just being a back-office function or a cost center for most of the organizations. This requires CTOs/CIOs to have a deep understanding of their organizations’ business and customer needs, as well as staying on top of the latest technology trends. The revenue generation has primarily come through the below 3 areas:

• Digital products and business models: This means a shift from selling a product physically to selling it through internet driven means i.e. digitally on Website, App or through APIs
• Digital Operations: Transformation of internal business processes through automation and RPA making the non-tech functions more productive, strengthening customer service through round the clock services via AI bots and deepening of engagements through personalisation
• Productization: Many a times an internal custom capability gets turned into a product to sell to externally thereby bringing in new revenue streams.

How is Zuno leveraging data analytics and AI to assess risk more accurately? What benefits does this bring to both the company and its policyholders?

We at Zuno are continuously innovating, having our own Data Lake has been a result of this path we have taken. We have harnessed the data flowing into the Data Lake from all sources and built many applications and APIs on top of it using the latest tech stacks. We have built customer dedupe to identify unique customers in our system, motor claim fraud prevention AI bots and health claims fraud detection algos. We are also in the process of building Customer 360 which will help us profile a customer and provide her/him a risk profile to be fed into all customer facing platforms including CRM and website. This will allow decisions to be taken automatically or facilitating underwriters on premium calculations, discounting, advise purchasing specific add-ons to the end customer, recommending motor and health products suitable to the customer’s needs, etc.

With the increasing importance of customer data protection and the need to prevent insurance fraud, could you discuss the role of technology in safeguarding customer data and ensuring the integrity of insurance processes at Zuno?

While technology has brought about ease in how a customer buys an insurance policy, either through an ‘agent’ using digital channels or a customer self-purchasing the policy through various digital frontends offered by the insurers, it has also led to an increased focus and concern on protection of the customer data being retained thereof. Data protection is essential through all four phases of the data’s lifecycle viz its entry at source/digital channel, during transmission, its consumption and its storage. The regulator has also recently put together a detailed framework for data protection.

For Data protection, organizations should:

• Classify Data as ‘critical’ and ‘non-critical’.
• Establish security processes to secure critical data including maintaining an audit trail.
• Role-based access control as to provide access to data only on a ‘need-to-know basis’.
• Multifactor access control mechanisms.
• Regular review of such access controls.
• Various methods for Data protection at rest like hashing, encryption etc.
• To design controls to ensure that data is not misused by the third party by way of executing non-disclosure agreements, right-protected emails, etc.

Staying ahead in adopting new technologies is crucial. What is Zuno's perspective on incorporating emerging technologies like blockchain, IoT, or ML, and how are these technologies shaping the future of insurance?

Staying ahead with the daily evolving tech is crucial in today’s Gen AI-influenced world. We at Zuno are continuously investing in path-breaking technologies which can help disrupt the current general insurance market and bring ease, simplicity, and transparency to the end customer. To move in that direction, we are developing a strong data architecture and building innovative AI/ML use cases like providing 24X7 services through AI voice and WhatsAppbots, fraud detection built on ML services like SageMaker, etc.

Can you provide some exclusive insights into Zuno's upcoming campaign from a technological standpoint? What emerging tech is being used to make this campaign a success?

The Zuno Driving Quotient Campaign uses Mobile Telematics to capture a User’s Driving behavior and basis a custom-built Algorithm calculates a driving score against a pattern of driving behaviour. The driving score thus captured helps the App to arrive at a discount which could then be redeemed once buying a 4-wheeler policy on the Zuno website.This entire architecture is built on Mobile Telematics and Microservices Technology.

PHYD insurance is gaining popularity for its potential to offer customized pricing based on driving habits. How does Zuno use technology to provide a seamless and personalized customer experience for policyholders enrolled in PHYD programs?

PHYD is all about tailoring your insurance to match your unique driving style. Now, here's how Zuno is going to keep things exciting for our PHYD policyholders.With the Zuno app, we’ll be using cutting-edge mobile telematics-based technology to understand how you drive. It's like having a personal driving coach in your pocket. PHYD helps you become a better driver, and as a bonus, we offer you discounted andand personalised premium when your policy term ends. So, Zuno becomes your driving buddy and not just an insurer. PHYD will make driving safer, smarter, and more affordable.

Finally, how is Zuno using tech innovation to improve the overall customer experience in the insurance sector, making it more user-friendly and efficient for policyholders?

Zuno is here to reimagine insurance. To create relatability around Insurance products so as to excite millennials and GenZ, we have simplified the benefits offered by all our products. Tech innovations power simplicity. Being born on the cloud helped us gain hold on many new-age tech faster than others and bring ease in the lives of our customers. The Zuno App has been built on Flutter—the most recent tech in app development—to offer our customers an intuitive yet rich service experience. Our responsive website is built on microservices architecture and helps customers in their entire life cycle including raising claims, checking their claims status and a host of other value-added services. Our AI-enabled voice bots help in round-the-clock claims registration. With the upcoming Zuno Driving Quotient built on Mobile Telematics technology, we are moving one step further in creating a world-class experience for our customers which is easy, breezy and surely!

Madhu Malhotra, Chief Technology Officer at Zuno General Insurance