AIA, the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group, has built an artificial intelligence (AI) based claim solution with straight-through-processing (STP) to allow customers to focus on health recovery.
STP is an automated service done without any human intervention.
AIA’s head of technology, digital and analytics transformation office, Sharon Khor told iTnews Asia that almost 70 percent of customer interactions across all markets are now happening through STP service.
Khor said, AIA Thailand has seen a successful STP rate of 80 percent for outpatient claims, and in Singapore, 98 percent of claims were auto-assessed, 60 percent with no human intervention and paid within 24 hours.
In Korea, AIA has cut down the time for submitting a claim to receive an outcome from an average of three days to just 20 minutes. TDA is improving turnaround time of all customer transactions completed on the same day, she added.
AIA Group Limited and its subsidiaries have a presence in 18 Asian markets and a 49 per cent joint venture in India. It offers a wide range of services such as life insurance, accident and health insurance savings plans for individuals and employee benefits, credit life and pension services to corporate clients.
As part of its digital transformation efforts, AIA is implementing its three-year corporate strategy - Ascend 200 to make investments in technology, digital and analytics (TDA) since 2020 to enhance resiliency and productivity across its business units.
It has so far successfully automated core processes to improve the digital experience for customers across buy, service and claim journeys.
“We aimed to create an integrated and connected experience for customers, employees and agents through redesigning initiatives to access and reach more people in their finance and health protection,” Khor explained.
AIA migrated hundreds of legacy systems, and customer-facing applications to the cloud, improving scalability and agility. It had built a hyper-personalised super app to improve engagement with customers and non-customers.
In the Philippines, AIA has delivered 99.9 percent underwriting accuracy using AI in the buying process and supported end-to-end customer onboarding.
It has introduced an AI-powered service robot, XiaoBang, to make reminder calls for customers on payment deadlines in Mainland China.
To reach the underinsured population, Khor said, the company launched a digital platform in partnership with companies such as Gojek, Tiki, TouchNGo, Shopee, and Openrice in Hong Kong.
“Last year, we welcomed 15 additional digital platform partners and acquired more than one million customers,” Khor said.
The firm has also partnered with Chinese insurance firm Zhong An to deliver Digital PAS-Graphene, a digital cloud-based policy administration platform to offer products easily through digital partner platforms.
AI Solutions for Agents/employees
Further, AIA has developed tools and training to create a robust and structured approach to scale employees’ digital capabilities through a cloud academy.
For agents, the company has created iRecruit, a recruitment application that uses AI to identify high-potential agents early in their careers to enable targeted and personalised career development programmes.
Through an interactive platform AI Roleplay, AIA China is supporting agent training and development experience. It equips agents with communication skills, systematic sales techniques and scripts to cover all aspects of sales processes.
The company's focus is on use cases in terms of AI with maximum impact towards business goals.
Speaking on the future plans, Khor said the firm wants to capitalise and optimise the benefits of recently delivered AI tools and AIA super app. The team is working to integrate chronic disease management (CDM) and many other healthcare services in its super app. “We aim to become a truly healthcare-integrated insurance firm,” she added.
