Say Goodbye to Paperwork: Our Digital Data-Based Underwriting Makes Buying Policies a Breeze. Read more

Aegon Life Insurance has moved its operations to a new digital platform, making buying policies seamless and straight-through. The new process is zero-paper, without any scanned documents, with the underwriting process based on validation from digital data sources.

Aegon Life MD & CEO Satishwar Balakrishnan said that in 2020 the company made a conscious decision to shift from conventional underwriting to data-based underwriting, which required it to go slow for some time.

“We wanted to test it out before we go full-fledged into the market. We are now comfortable with the data-based underwriting model and want to start moving into scale,” said Satishwar.

“Our models show that the results are favourable. There is no adverse selection, and there is not much of an impact at the top of the funnel. We are experiencing a persistency of over 90% in our term business,” he said.

Times Group, which publishes this newspaper, has a 46.1% stake in Aegon Life Insurance. Aegon Life has launched a term insurance plan with an innovative special exit option, allowing customers whose protection needs have come down to withdraw money they have already paid. Next in line is a savings plan and a unit-linked insurance plan on the new digital platform.

According to Balakrishnan, the company is now a pure digital play which is not to be confused with a direct company that sells policies to customers online. Instead, Aegon Life reaches out to customers through partners who already have a connect with them. Any entity that connects to customers can connect to Aegon’s systems through API (application programming interface).

While the first leg of convincing the customer to purchase can take place through any channel, the second phase of form filling, underwriting and policy issuance happens digitally in a seamless manner.

“The medical appointments are generated as a part of the straight-through process. The moment the customer gets the medical done, the reports come through digitally."