Sourcing 70% of business through digital channels: Shriram General Insurance MD

In an insightful conversation on ‘BFSI Tech Tales’, Neeraj Prakash, MD, Shriram General Insurance, shared his perspectives on how they ideate and implement technology, major developments in the purview of Covid-19 disruption and how they tie-up with InsurTechs and lastly cyber-security measures. Edited Excerpts:

Q. How’s the technology strategy at Shriram General Insurance?

Since inception of the company we have implemented state-of-the-art technologies for all business functions, be it Policy Servicing to customer (Underwriting, Claims and Helpdesk Management), Investment Management, Reinsurance program and Actuarial valuation. We had tied up with global technology conglomerates like Oracle, SAP and SAS for the same. However, in the last 6-7 years due to a surge in major technological trends, we are also forced to embrace the same as our counterparts have moved ahead of us. Now we can say we are on par with them as we have moved our focus completely now into Digital/Online platforms. Also we are automating our few key functional areas bringing in more AI and ML platforms. I am confident with the kind of support staff we have, we will achieve the same soon.

Q. How does the tech ideation happen?

Our main focus is to bring in 100% Customer satisfaction in Policy servicing and Claim settlement. We have a dedicated Customer helpdesk management team, who caters servicing round the clock, be it Claim admission or Renewal of policy follow up with customers. Also, a separate team accepts customer feedback on post claim settlement. We have realigned tech-ideation to boost up total operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Q. What are the major developments in the last four months; and how does things look from here on?

In the last four months, we have fork lifted our technology strength due to COVID-19 pandemic. We have strengthened our footprints in the Digital platform, implementing collaboration tools. Currently we are sourcing about 70% of the total business portfolio through Mobile/Online applications. We have automated our major processes online starting from Inspection of vehicles, seamless instant Policy generation and premium collections through all digital modes.

Another key milestone we had achieved in this period was that we had leveraged Google’s collaboration tool to connect with all employees regularly to take stock of the entire situation of all departments, encouraging them during the total lockdown. This actually boosts up their morale and they don’t feel isolated as we feel are working normally.

Q. Thoughts on failures? Implementations which didn't scale up or work out as planned; learnings from it?

We had such failures in Business continuity in 2009 during the IOC fire tragedy which was in close vicinity of our Corporate office in Jaipur. At that time we had not leveraged the full capability on Disaster management. Again during Chennai flood time, we experienced some failures in non-core applications. Those learnings on our failures paved the way for building a robust fully automated Disaster recovery system as of now and we can proudly say today all of our applications having uptime of closure to 100%.

Q. Tie-ups with InsurTechs? How're these strategised and worked out?

SGI had tied up with Novac Technology Solutions (NTS), who is Shriram Group’s technology arm for implementation of latest Technologies. With NTS capability, we had automated our major business functionalities like Policy Generation, Claims Management and Customer Support systems through Digital technological platforms. We were almost on the verge of pushing all these into online platforms just before pandemic started creating menace throughout the country. We can say this was the most appropriate time for us to embrace Digital technology in totality. We are now actually operating paperless offices due to adoption of the same.

NTS is a Fintech as well as InsurTech company providing IT support to the entire Shriram Group’s four major financial companies be it Commercial Vehicle Financing, retail financing, Life and General Insurance.

Q. Evolving trends in the cyber-security landscape and how're you dealing in mitigating threats and attacks?

We have further strengthened our Cyber Security strength during this pandemic period. We have adopted a ‘work-from-home’ strategy for all employees including contact center employees. We have empowered our entire support office staffs from Underwriting, Claims, Actuary, Customer Helpdesk, Accounts and payout departments to work from home through SSL VPN tunnel through Forticlient and few users through ForticlientIPSec VPN tunnel with Forti-token two factor authentications.

We are also sending constant mailers educating, cautioning the employees not to fall prey to malicious mails which could lead to phishing attacks during this pandemic time. Actually during the lockdown, Cyber-attacks have increased manifold globally. We have a dedicated vigilant SOC team, who are constantly monitoring round the clock through state-of-the-art surveillance systems. Further, we had added new threat indicators and advisories to tackle cyber threats around COVID-19. Response teams on high alert to support clients round the clock.

So, the total security aspects also looked in to avoid any kind of glitch at a later stage and we all are well prepared for the same.