Digital Underwriting: Bandhan Life's Innovative Approach

In 1999, a book called ‘The Private Lives of Albert Einstein’ gave birth to a popular rumour. It claimed that even Einstein faced challenges with his life insurance policy. His insurer requested a medical exam, and astonishingly, the doctor doubted Einstein’s intelligence. Only after Einstein swiftly solved a complex math problem did the doctor give him a clean chit.

Only Einstein can confirm if it is true. But as insurance experts, we know how complex underwriting can be. Fortunately, we have transitioned to an era where risks are assessed more objectively leveraging wider data & technology. Bandhan Life stands out as early adopter to deploy such technology that enables processing applications quicker, easier, safer & scalable.

HOW TO IMPROVE SPEED AND EFFICIENCY?

Life insurance underwriting has traditionally been anything but speedy. The increasing demand for quick and convenient services has put enormous pressure on the insurance industry to improve its underwriting process.

At Bandhan Life we have accelerated the underwriting process by data driven approach that makes the process quicker and eliminates the need for any documentation.

Our AI-powered ‘Authentication Engine’ validates customers' identity in seconds, pulling data directly from government sources. The customer only needs to enter either their Aadhaar, PAN, or driver’s license number—no scanning, no uploading.

Some eligible consumers face challenges of denial or delay in obtaining covers due to lack of required documentation as per the general industry practice. For example, the need for standard financial documents to determine eligibility. So, we decided to focus on this untapped segment by leveraging the Account Aggregator (AA) network. Now, customers just enter the mobile number connected to their bank account, and our AI models can verify their income and lifestyle via their online bank statements. It is that easy!

SERVING CUSTOMERS BETTER

A crucial aspect of underwriting it to determine the right type and amount of cover at an optimal price by understanding the profile, lifestyle, and the financial needs of the applicant.

Our ‘Data Enrichment Engine’ pulls from various digitally authenticated sources—like social media, device and location data, website behaviour, etc.—to enrich customer profiles. This real-time data sourcing allows us to provide products that are a perfect fit for our customer's needs.

Working on that data, our ‘Pricing Engine’ offers dynamic and personalized pricing to customers based on their profiles and needs, within a matter of seconds.

Take a look at our term insurance calculator to see how we do it.

ASSESSING A CUSTOMER’S LONGEVITY

Predicting how long anybody will live is always challenging due to continually changing environmental and individual factors. Traditionally, underwriters have looked at health, lifestyle, occupation, finances, and some indicators to determine risks. However, modern lifestyles, emerging risks, the complexity of new diseases, medical advancements, and its variable outcomes have made underwriting more challenging than ever before. These challenges are forcing life insurance companies to rethink the way they underwrite life insurance policies.  

Bandhan Life’s ‘Longevity engine’ enables automated medical underwriting using a dynamic, reflexive questionnaire to understand an applicant’s health status and predict their longevity. It also identifies specific risk triggers to decide if the applicant needs further medical tests.                

Our revolutionary health verification process can determine key health indicators like resting heartbeat, breathing rate, stress, and even biological age just through a 15-second selfie video of the applicant. Yes, that is all it takes!

Check out the iWellness feature on our website, which gives personalized health tips to visitors.

COMBATING INSURANCE FRAUDS

Three to four percent of insurance claims are fraudulent. These frauds cost insurers $80 billion dollars globally. Now Bandhan Life is leading the way in detecting such frauds through technology.

Our sophisticated ‘Eligibility Engine’ employs fraud-detection and financial-underwriting algorithms that sift through applications to reject suspicious applicants. to ensure we offer policies only to those who genuinely qualify.

With a vision to ensure that every household is financially secure, we have an ambitious task at hand here at Bandhan Life. This will require us to make insurance easy, hassle-free, customized. Digital underwriting has enabled us to replace subjective and time-intensive processes with customer-friendly, data-driven decision-making that addresses the numerous challenges that have plagued the industry till now. We have just begun to harness the potential these advances offer. Digital underwriting is the future, and it is looking like a bright future indeed.