Singapore and Hong Kong – August 25, 2011 – Eight Asia/Pacific insurance firms were conferred the Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) at the annual Asian Insurance Congress (AIC) organized by IDC Financial Insights today. The submissions provided by Aviva Ltd, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Co Ltd, CIGNA International (Thailand), HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co Ltd, ICICI Prudential Life Corporation, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance, MAA Takaful Berhad, and PT Prudential Life Assurance Indonesia emerged as the winning initiatives from among 68 high-quality entries submitted by insurers across the Asia/Pacific region.
The FIIA (Insurance) program recognizes achievements of Asia/Pacific insurers in applying innovation to drive business differentiation. Insurers were invited to nominate initiatives that clearly demonstrate innovation in customer engagement, channel enhancement, product development, and operational transformation. The initiatives were rigorously evaluated and scored against a set of criteria with weightage given to responsiveness to market needs, effectiveness of implementation, market take-up, sustainability, customer impact, and nature of innovation.
“The Financial Insights Innovation Awards for the insurance industry expands upon the success of our annual FIIA program for banks. The number and quality of submissions we received for this inaugural program reflect how progressive players in Asia/Pacific have stepped up their game by investing in product differentiation, delivery capabilities, and core processes,” notes Shawn Yip, Senior Analyst at IDC Financial Insights Asia/Pacific and Program Director of the FIIA.
Below is a summary of the eight winners of the FIIA (Insurance) 2011, arranged in alphabetical order:
Name of Institution: Aviva Ltd.
Name of Award: Service Channel Innovation — Direct Channel
- Recognizing that the Internet offers a cost-effective, customer-centric platform where straight-forward, ubiquitous insurance products can be sold without the need for agents, Aviva launched the first direct motor insurance business in Singapore, providing vehicle owners the ability to tailor and purchase insurance in real-time through self-generated quotes. The absence of costs associated with traditional paper-and commission-based models allows Aviva to focus on targeted marketing initiatives, and utilize agile, flexible and aggressive product pricing that can attract, acquire and keep customers while building the Aviva brand.
Name of Institution: Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Co. Ltd.
Name of Award: Innovation in Mobile Enablement — Claims Survey Processes
- Cholamandalam MS has adopted the mobile computing technology for its claims surveys process. The vehicle surveyor application is one that utilizes voice, camera and data connectivity capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy Tablet to capture and store auto survey data in one database. In the past, underwriters at Cholamandalam MS had to manually match survey notes in email and photos saved in other databases before making a decision on a claim. This initiative reduced turnaround time in the claims process, increased productivity of surveyors, and improved fraud prevention.
Name of Institution: CIGNA International (Thailand)
Name of Award: Innovation in Customer Engagement — Customer Value Management (CVM)
- Marking a move away from the mass marketing approach often associated with outbound telemarketing, CIGNA invested in a Customer Value Management (CVM) initiative to create the necessary customer-centric skill sets and systems. CIGNA’s CVM system ensures that the right product is sold to the right person at the right time, which helps to lower the cost of customer acquisition. The initiative is shaping up to be a key differentiator in CIGNA’s affinity value proposition.
Name of Institution: HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
Name of Award: Innovation in CRM — MINT, Customer Renewal and Retention System
- Customer satisfaction, retention, and user productivity were identified as drivers behind HDFC Life’s development of MINT – a configurable and scalable platform that manages the premium collection process, and automatically prompts contact center agents and HDFC Life’s front office team to engage with customers about renewals and revival. Besides improving efficiencies associated with automated management of customer information, MINT has contributed to higher persistency and revenue levels.
Name of Institution: ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Corporation
Name of Award: Application Architecture Innovation — Insta Insure
- The phenomenal growth of Internet users in India has brought with it a new generation of customers with a preference for interacting online. To address this opportunity, ICICI Prudential Life developed Insta Insure to support its end-to-end policy origination and administration process, from premium and benefit calculation to basic underwriting to issuance, on a single platform. Apart from providing the ability to offer online-only term products and instant life cover, Insta Insure has been instrumental in differentiating the customer buying experience.
Name of Institution: Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance
Name of Award: Innovation in Sales Enablement — Life Advisor Portal
- Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life’s Life Advisor Portal offers a one-stop solution for advisors by catering to all their information needs. Based on a premise of providing advisors with information within three clicks, the Life Advisor Portal, which comes in both Hindi and English, is an engaging distributor tool that has empowered its life advisors to perform at peak efficiency, while increasing their stickiness with Kotak Life.
Name of Institution: MAA Takaful Berhad
Name of Award: Innovation in Sales Automation and Agency Management — iCMS
- iCMS is MAA Takaful’s solution-in-a-box for its agency force. The solution integrates sales automation, customer relationship management (CRM) and agency management on a single platform. The iCMS is designed on a robust architecture incorporating tools and processes which meets and addresses performance, efficiency and business needs. iCMS allows Takaful’s agents to plan, track and monitor their production as well as carry out customer profiling. Equipped with e-submission and digital signature features, the portal also facilitates the approval process and updates the agency forces on developments, news and products of MAA Takaful.
Name of Institution: PT Prudential Life Assurance Indonesia
Name of Award: Excellence in Business Process Management
- Prudential Indonesia initiated a transformation of its new policy application processes, using automated end-to-end business process management combined with automatic underwriting processes. Results were impressive, with the insurer witnessing increased productivity and improved services as a result of significant reduction in pending applications, improvement on processing turnaround time, reduced error rates, and a trebling of production capacity.
About IDC Financial Insights’ Asian Insurance Congress (AIC) 2011
IDC Financial Insights’ AIC was launched in 2008 by IDC Financial Insights on the premise of providing insurance executives from across Asia/Pacific a platform to discuss the core business, operational, risk and technology issues that they are championing.
The agenda of this year’s AIC revolves around the theme “Ascension of Asian Insurers up the Global Order.” It features a panel of 25 visionary practitioners from international and regional insurers, and vendor community. These experts will tap into their wealth of industry experience to address pertinent issues centering around the ascendance of emerging Asia; the return of an emphasis on customer centricity; and, the role of social media in insurance. IDC Financial Insights’ analysts will also provide their expert analysis of the insurance landscape in 2011 and beyond. The topics for the concurrent breakout sessions are on alternative delivery models and new growth hotspots; technological innovation; and, issues and concerns over regulations, risk management and security.
IDC Financial Insights will announce the winners of the Financial Insights Innovation Awards Insurance – FIIA (Insurance) at the conference. In its inaugural edition, FIIA (Insurance) recognizes the achievements of insurers across the region in the area of innovation in realizing business objectives.
For more information about the conference, visit www.idc.com.sg/insurecongress/2011/.
About IDC Financial Insights
IDC Financial Insights assists financial service businesses and IT leaders, as well as the suppliers who serve them, in making more effective technology decisions by providing accurate, timely, and insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Staffed by senior analysts with decades of industry experience, our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the banking, insurance, and securities and investments industries. International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology market. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology, media, research, and events company. For more information, please visit www.idc-fi.com. Visit the IDC Financial Insights Community at http://idc-insights-community.com/financial.
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