Insurance is a business of relationships; traditionally, an outcome of frequent handshakes between agents and their customers. That is changing fast. Some of the country’s biggest insurers are moving to a digital-first approach, reducing the dependence on agents for selling an insurance product. Take Edelweiss Tokio, one of the latest entrants to the space. The company thinks of itself not as an insurance firm but a technology company in the insurance business, says Anup Seth, chief retail officer. This, he adds, makes all the difference. Seth says they have adopted a completely digital policy for even offline channels. “Offline businesses depend on an agent’s competency and how he sees the product in his mind. Digital has taken that arbitrage away. Agents no longer end up selling (only) what they want to sell,” he said. Edelweiss Tokio has a full stack of digital applications. For instance, an instant policy issuance which converts a customer’s money into a policy in 30 seconds. And, a unit-linked insurance plan invests the money in the market the same day the policy is purchased. The way companies are approaching digitisation is two-pronged. Not only are they intent on boosting their online sales, they are also focused on making their field executives digitally savvy via a range of tools, which use algorithms and machine learning to predict what a customer might want even before the latter expresses a desire.
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