Naren Baliga, Manulife Vietnam Chief Operating Officer. — Photo courtesy of Manulife Vietnam

In an era where customers expect digital interactions for everything they do, harnessing the power of digital is important for life insurers to drive greater customer engagement.

We sat with Naren Baliga, Manulife Vietnam Chief Operating Officer, to discuss how Manulife uses digital solutions to differentiate itself and win consumer trust and loyalty.

With the explosion of digital technologies, customers today prefer to be more hands-on regarding what they are purchasing or looking out for. Is that true for life insurance?

Absolutely. Việt Nam’s population has quickly embraced digital trends, reshaping the economy and how we live.

Indeed the rapid digital evolution has changed customer expectations.

Consider the seamless online experiences people get from Grab to MoMo to Shopee. Those experiences now influence their expectations for the next digital interaction, whether for food, entertainment or life insurance services.

It is like you can have everything you want right now. So, why not your life insurance policy? Why do you have to go to your closet to pull out a 20-page document to read it? Why can’t you see it on your phone and store it online?

People often think that to be the leading insurance company in the market, you have to compete against other insurance companies.

But I believe that the challenge every insurer has today is how to provide a digital experience like every other digital experience customers already have in their daily lives.

Given that digital experience has become the competition for every insurer, can you share with us some of the digital initiatives that Manulife Vietnam has launched recently?

Recently, we launched a new simplified policy kit which prompts customers to interact with the many digital solutions we offer while also delivering a scaled-back version of the once paper-heavy policy kit.

Using their smart devices, customers can quickly and easily access their full ePolicy via the ManuConnect customer portal – the single online touchpoint to review and self-manage their policies.

The portal additionally serves as a knowledge centre to manage a customer’s policy portfolio throughout their term with Manulife.

Manulife Vietnam’s paperless eClaims solution, which allows customers to submit a claim online in as little as a minute, was recently upgraded.

We have partnered with a leading data analytics and AI technology provider to integrate accurate time fraud detection into the existing claims platform.

This helps improve the claims experience for everyone and reduces costs for insurers and customers. In addition, we’ve also supercharged the eClaims engine that runs our auto-adjudication for claims. This back-end improvement will make claims processing even faster for our customers.

Manulife Vietnam’s paperless eClaims solution, which allows customers to submit a claim online in as little as a minute, was recently upgraded. — Photo courtesy of Manulife Vietnam

With ePolicy implemented, how does Manulife address the issue of customers who are not used to digital devices and prefer to manage paper policies?

Changing long-term habits is hard, especially for those who are still in the process of embracing new technology. However, we have our 60,000-strong agency force and a team of customer service centre employees ready and willing to help train and guide customers on managing their ePolicies.

It is just like when we launched our digital tool, eClaims, and we thought it would be challenging for customers to submit documents digitally. The reality is, as of today, 95 per cent of our claims are now submitted through the eClaims portal.

For customers who still prefer paper policies, I think it is just a matter of time and patience as we help introduce them to the many benefits of ePolicy and going paperless.

Customers must understand that each digital transformation they make with the company will help drive a meaningful change for the environment. It’s how we all win.

Manulife Vietnam is working on bringing together a holistic suite of financial services by enhancing the ManulifeMOVE app. — Photo courtesy of Manulife Vietnam.

How important is it for insurers like Manulife Vietnam to leverage digitalisation and be able to connect with a whole different customer?

For me, digitalisation is no longer just a driving factor for the growth of the life insurance industry. It is also transforming the entire value chain. Insurers that fail to adopt digitalisation will be left behind.

At Manulife Vietnam, we are working on bringing together a holistic suite of financial services by enhancing our ManulifeMOVE app.

With our behavioural insurance platform, customers are not only allowed to track their progress against set fitness goals but also have access to end-to-end healthcare services such as an online doctor, telemedicine, and a pharmacy.

Customers can also see their policy benefits, have direct access to claims and medical cards, and find their nearest natural billing hospital. This provides greater convenience for customers as we know that they do not want to go through different apps to search for various services.

Going forward, I believe that the life insurance industry will use digital technologies to create a 360-degree view of their customers.

In a digital insurance marketplace that is deeply informed by rich data and powered by artificial intelligence, customer needs will be identified better, and insurers can tailor products and services that better meet customer expectations. — VNS