HEALTH INSURANCE: INDIA In August 2020, it rolled out The Toffee Plan, a bundled monthly subscription policy covering health, life and household, which also included hospitalisation expenses arising from pandemics, as well as their consequential impact, such as being unable to work because of quarantine.
INTEGRATIVE TECHNOLOGY Direct-to-consumer innovation is one response to the problem of underinsurance. But there’s a parallel technology trend emerging, too: the tech layers provided by another set of insurtechs that help incumbents to adapt and quicken their pace. MetaMorphoSys Technologies helps traditional insurance providers with product configuration so that they can launch innovative products fast, and perform quick underwriting, customer acquisition and claim resolution. Amit Naik, CEO and co-founder, says MetaMorphoSys sees itself as a legacy transformation company. “The incumbents are invested in monolithic, old legacy platforms. They have invested so much money in these and it’s a nightmare to change them,” he says. MetaMorphoSys allows them to continue to power the business, but to all intents and purposes what’s clients, customers and employees interact with is his platform. “We'll show them the butterfly – my platform,” says Naik, “which sits on top of this legacy so that they can launch innovative products, innovate in underwriting, do quick claims processing. Whether it’s a group claim, individual claim, life claim, health claim, the claim adjudicator sees the entire data on one page, it can be auto approved, it comes with a decision, and all the adjudicator has to do is to check the data and OK it because there’s so much intelligence built into this system. What took a week now happens in 30 to 35 minutes.” This laying of old and new enable fast processing of data and integration of systems, as well as validations that enable identification of fraudulent claims. Naik agrees that COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation among insurance companies. The biggest change, he thinks, has been the shift from on-premise to an on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. “Insurance companies were so scared, initially, about the regulator, about data privacy and data security issues; they were
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scared about how they’d manage, whether they’d lose control. But, pushed by COVID-19, now they are willing to put everything in the Cloud. And it is giving them a cost leverage and a speed benefit. And the end customer gains out of this whole situation.” Naik, however, emphasises that what actually made a difference for MetaMorphoSys was its approach, using component-based platforms and ready-to-go intellectual property. “We gave a set of 150 claim rules and the anomalies to a Hong Kong-based insurance company we are working with. The code alone is of no use but with this intellectual
months, and for some of them it’s as high as 70 per cent. That’s a big jump and I think it’s going to stay this way all the time customers perceive an uncertainty in the health and medical environment and this heightened sense of mortality.” For years, for those with steady, well-paid jobs, the end of a financial year meant taking out insurance policies because it helped to offset some of the tax burden. For the rest of the year, there would be little understanding or interaction with the policies. The new-age insurtech startups are changing this behaviour through post-sale customer engagement and social media, as competition increases.
Cost benefit: Micro-insurance products and platform technology is widening access to health services
property – the rules, data and insights – insurance companies should be able to leverage the best practices. That’s what makes the difference,” he explains.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE In the fiscal year ending March 2020, India’s life insurance companies recorded 11.36 per cent growth in their collective premium income. Since then, catalysed by the pandemic, the insurance industry, especially the healthcare segment, has seen a further boost. The IRDAI is yet to publish its data, but industry experts think there are reasons to rejoice. Kumar says: “Across all our health insurance partners, demand has gone up by around 30 per cent in the past eight
Naik, however, suggests that the industry will see a lot of consolidation in the coming years, as startups continue to mushroom. He says: “There’s greater awareness and penetration has increased. But, I think, over a period of time, you will see that very few companies will be able to sustain themselves. A lot of consolidation will happen.” For the time being, however, the new insurtechs are defining new products, new systems. And they are also showing the way to go in terms of customer engagement and relevance. This, in turn, is enabling individuals and entrepreneurs like Bakshi to afford a health insurance cover not only for himself but for his extended families, too. www.fintechf.com