THE PHILIPPINE American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philam Life) is eyeing to launch its automatic underwriting system next year and triple its overall consumer base in next three years with its end-to-end digital system, officials said on Tuesday.

Philam Life Chief Operations Officer Gigi Pio de Roda said the insurer is targeting to launch by 2020 the artificial intelligence (AI) model it has been working since the start of the year to streamline the underwriting process for simple cases.

“We have models that learned from the results of the historical data… It increases your efficiency in terms of auto-underwriting… We’re currently at the 70%, so we’re trying to achieve a 90% auto-underwriting. What that means is that you can actually underwrite bigger volume,” Ms. Pio de Roda said.

The AI model will automatically assess simple cases based on the decisions made by underwriters in the past, while the more complicated cases will still be handled by human underwriters since they need more in-depth analysis.

Philam Life Chief Marketing Officer Leonardo D. Tan said the insurer also wants to triple its current consumer base within the next three years as it boosts its digital push.

Currently, the insurer caters to a 2.6-million strong customer base, which includes both the firm’s individual and group clients, Mr. Tan said.

Philam Life CEO Kelvin Ang said the firm’s end-to-end digital system will allow it to reach individuals who typically live from paycheck-to-paycheck and assess their needs.

“They have no savings right in case something happens…so this is a segment that we need to assess. (We aim to) move into the C market and eventually we aspire to move into the D1 market… The people who really need it (insurance) are the people in D1, C market who live check on check… These are the people we want to observe and we can’t do it if we don’t have a solution and we don’t have a platform,” Mr. Ang said on Tuesday.

Last year, Mr. Tan said the insurance company has been looking to explore the microinsurance business to narrow the protection gap among Filipinos, adding that “it has been part of the plan” for the company.

Philam Life claims to be one of the leading companies in terms of digitalization in the industry since it was the first to adopt the interactive point of sale (IPOS) system.

IPOS is a self-serving sale system which assesses clients’ financial status, creates policy proposals and allows digital application and online payments.

Philam Life also has a online customer portal where clients can view and check their account for updates and electronic billing, as well as its digital customer service platform IServe.

It likewise has the ePolicy service, a legally binding “paperless” or electronic contract for customers. Completing its end-to-end digital system is a platform that allows the electronic submissions of claims.

Ms. Pio de Roda said Philam Life saves around P150 million yearly due to its digital platform, as manual processing requires printing and courier services, among others.

As of end-2018, Philam Life had P249.6 billion in total assets with over 700,000 individual policyholders and over three million insured group members. — BML

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR