An industry veteran with a dynamic presence in the financial services space for over 22 years, V Viswanand is Deputy Managing Director at Max Life Insurance and an esteemed member of the Board. In his role, he helms complete responsibility for Distribution, that of Proprietary Channels, Third Party and Bancassurance Business, Institutional Sales, Business Development and Distribution Operations among other pivotal functions. 

Q.    What kind of challenges you and your agents network have you faced in the last 5 months?

Globally, through the last few months, COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected how individuals engage with one another across industries. In the insurance industry, physical distancing measures transformed activities which were traditionally performed in person, to digital and remote means. With the in-person channel removed, insurers needed to cope with volumes, digitize operations and leverage the online services while reimagining the role of agents in wake of the pandemic. 

With the COVID-19 situations making customers more aware of life and health related risks, Max Life with its quick-response program ‘Mission Possible 2020’ implemented a swiftly designed digital operating model for distribution. Under this program, an agile shift to remote work enabled frontline sellers and sales managers with infrastructure and digital tools to continue work from home and support existing customers and sell remotely. Revised ‘Digital Sales Processes’ across all channels was rolled out under which training of more than 9000 frontline sales team and 10,000 agent advisors in the field was completed digitally in just two weeks in April. Thereafter, in the entire Agency and Bank specified persons were trained in the subsequent two weeks of that month.

The smooth digital transition was made possible by having an optimized future outlook wherein our significant investments in digital technologies including a mobile-first approach, VDI and other digital tools, much in advance, stood us in good stead for this unprecedented situation.  

Q.    What are the challenges you anticipate for the next 7 months?

While operational restrictions will have a short-term effect on growth, this situation will create greater realization amongst the community and shift the focus to safeguarding the health and financial future of families from any such calamities in the future. The overall demand and penetration of life insurance in the country will therefore increase. Moreover, during the current times, companies have responded with a quick adoption of ‘Digital’ only mediums and we can expect this to be the new normal post the pandemic as consumers equally embrace digital channels. 

During the rest of this financial year, Max Life will be focusing on enhancing the digital way of working and enabling digital sales across distribution channels through various training modules. Max Life is also determined to turn two of its largest offline channels – bancassurance and agency network into contactless selling channels. While some changes in our current ‘way of working’ may get reversed post lockdown, the “new organization muscle” developed will be carefully nurtured post COVID recovery.

Q.    Do you think online sales of retail products will take over traditional sales in the next 5 years? If yes, Why? If No, Why?

Over the last few months, under lockdown, there has been a significant shift towards the digital way of life. The movement towards ‘Digital’ only mediums is expected to be the new normal post the pandemic as consumers are growing acquainted with digital channels. This has further translated into how consumers search, interact with insurers and buy policies. Insights from google analytics show an 89% growth in term insurance google searches in the first quarter of this year.

At Max Life Insurance too, as operations across the value chain have been digitized through COVID-19, there’s been a significant growth in our e-commerce channel. Our digital first consumer mindset has resulted in 31% growth of e-commerce channels during the first quarter (AMJ) with a YoY growth of 37%. However, in a 5-year timeframe, I do not see online sales overtaking traditional sales in life insurance.

Q.    What future do you see for your existing agents network?

At Max Life, we have pivoted end-to-end ‘Agent Recruitment’ program to a completely paperless & contactless process, which has yielded an impressive increase in unique registrations for new Agent applications. Additionally, series of digital enablers have been triggered to reduce or eliminate any friction in the onboarding of customers, such as selective waivers for supporting documents and need for medical tests. 

COVID-19 has been a great lesson of preparedness for all of us. It has drawn greater realization to the urgent need of reimagining processes to remove friction, enable virtual prospecting, and developing a digital sales force. This ‘new normal’ requires a focused approach in building tech infrastructure which complements the ecosystem. The digital ecosystem is going to pave way for a digital-first approach across functions. On the processing side, there is a need to look at processing centres as virtual centres which allow for uberization – seamless transfer of work-streams across locations. 

Q.    Which product do you think will do well in the next 2 years and why?

Based on past experiences, it has been observed that pandemics provide tailwinds to two types of products, namely protection and guaranteed products and we already foresee shift towards such product forms. At Max Life, we have assessed and witnessed that more consumers are preferring investments in protection products and guaranteed saving products to secure the future of their loved ones in these uncertain times. While the demand for guaranteed savings products will increase, we believe people will continue to focus on important life-stage goals such as children’s education and marriage which are time-bound.

As per Max Life’s ‘India Protection Quotient Express’ Survey (a Covid-19 centric study conducted in association with Kantar) too, 41% intender respondents said that they would purchase term plans because with increase in spread of COVID-19, it is important to have a financial protection for self and family. Hence, we believe that term plans will see an uptick in the coming times based on new-age customer demands.