By Karl Angelo N. Vidal
DIGITAL transformation has been a buzzword, an overused one, for quite some time across industries, especially in the financial services sector. Banks around the world continuously enhance their online and mobile platforms as they veer away from merely setting up more branches. Investment firms and asset managers are venturing into robo-advisors to broaden the market for clients who do not have enough funds for traditional advising.
Given the ever-changing business landscape, insurance companies too must employ digital innovations to improve sales, quicken underwriting, reduce costs and eventually increase profits. For Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philam Life), digital transformation has been its commitment for years.
In an interview, Philam Life Chief Agency Officer Eric G. Nicdao said the insurer sees the value of harnessing digital innovations as these enhance customer experience.
“Philam Life puts premium to technological and digital innovation to make every step of our consumer journey easier and more efficient, from the time they find out about our products to the time they make claims,” said Mr. Nicdao, who is also in charge of managing Philam Life’s digital transformation journey.
He said Philam Life is “leading” in terms of digital transformation in the industry, as the company was the first to adapt interactive point of sale (IPOS) and other mobile platforms, allowing customers to learn, buy, pay and claim their policies completely paperless.
“Looking at that journey, we mapped out what digital platforms we can set up to help and give the client the ease of doing business with us: learn, buy, after-sale, and claim,” he said.
Through IPOS, Philam Life’s financial advisors allow clients to fill out policy forms, understand the terms and conditions and sign the document using a tablet. The accomplished form will be immediately transmitted to the insurer’s underwriter and be approved within days. Clients can also pay for their premiums, update their information and eventually claim for the policy through online and mobile channels.
“Through IPOS, on the spot, we can tailor-fit the product and the proposal and the program according to the needs of the client,” Mr. Nicdao added.
For the agents, they can also track their productivity through a separate application, wherein they can monitor commissions and premiums collected, among others.
With these technological innovations, Mr. Nicdao said digital transformation translates to quicker turnaround time, more efficient agency pool and eventually wider customer base.
“For getting clients, it’s a lot easier as well because it’s ease of doing business. Definitely, it makes things a lot easier… It’s creating quality business,” he said, adding that the reception of the new ways of transacting was more or less well-received by both clients and agents.
“There are more people who are receptive than those who are not. Those who are not are those who are pretty old,” he said.
Currently, Philam Life’s IPOS system has a utilization rate of 93%, as some seasoned agents are “pushed back for change.”
Even as Philam Life has been rapidly adopting new ways of doing business, Mr. Nicdao noted that digital channels can never replace its agents.
“For me, digitalization is just an enabler or a tool. It makes doing business easier and convenient, but it cannot replace totally the human person or the human touch. High tech can never replace high touch,” he said.
“All a gadget can do is compute how much insurance you need, but it can never really match a person’s sentiments with the numbers. And financial advisors can do both of that,” he added.
Apart from making the business more efficient, Mr. Nicdao said digitalization also enables the company to tap more uninsured Filipinos, as insurance penetration in the country remains low at 1.76% as of end-September 2018.
“Our mission and vision is to bring a Philam Life policy in every Filipino home. If that is the vision, I guess digitalization can pave the way so that even those in the outskirts can also experience the beauty of life insurance,” Mr. Nicdao said.
The Philam Group is the biggest life insurer in the country. As of end-2017, Philam Life and its bancassurance affiliate BPI-Philam Life Assurance Co. posted a combined total premium income of P40.2 billion.
It is servicing over 700,000 clients nationwide with over 66 offices nationwide and 7,000 active agents.
