Religare Health Insurance looks at AI for claim settlement

Advanced technological capabilities and changing customer behaviour is leading to a transformation in the insurance industry. Religare Health Insurance (RHI) is not one to be left behind.

With RHI’s operating philosophy being based on the principal tenets of ‘consumer-centricity,’ the company has consistently invested in effective application of technology to deliver excellence in customer servicing, product innovation, and value-for-money services.

In an exclusive conversation with ETCIO, Suresh Kolla, EVP, Head-IT, Religare Health Insurance, provides insights into how he is transforming the company through technology. Four years back when the company began its journey to digital, it realized only 10% of the policies were being underwritten digitally.

"To overcome this, we had to think and asses as to what changes can be done in the technological system that would enhance customer experience and make them adopt digital. The bigger challenge, however, was to present a digital model to channel partners, who were more comfortable working in the traditional manner. So we knew we had to present it in a way which will help them sell better, save time, and provide better scope of transparency," Kolla says.

A large number of customers file insurance claims daily. Therefore, every insurance provider wants to do away with any and every issue related to claim settlement to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction. To digitally enable both its customers and channel partners, RHI provided them with a website, e-portal, and application. "Owing to the digital platforms, 85% of our policies are now issued digitally," says Kolla.

While a huge range of product was a competitive advantage, the longer hours in claim settlement and customer query reversal was not. To turn around the situation, Religare deployed a chatbot, powered by Google Dialogflow, to address customer queries. The result is that as of today, RHI settles the claim and reimburses the amount within a week.

Considering the disruptive capabilities of Artificial Intelligence, Kolla wants to deploy it in RHI. Working with a startup, RHI is piloting some AI projects, which he believes will strengthen various processes in the organisation. "Rather than reviewing and investigating every case, we wanted something that can accelerate claim settlement automatically. On achieving certain benefits and a fair level of comfort, we will deploy the solution," explains Kolla.

"We are working on another project related to customer propensity wherein we are reviewing our channel partners and trying to see what is causing customer to drop out. On the basis of this, we are trying to tailor our conversations with them," Kolla adds.

Source: The Economic Times