Vijay Kumar is the CEO & the Principal Officer at Digit Insurance. He is an industry veteran with over 15 years of experience in the insurance industry. In his last stint he was the president of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. Prior to Digit, he had been associated with Auto Sector and has worked with top Car manufacturers like Maruti & Hyundai from their start-up phase.
Q1. What was your idea behind launching fully digital company for selling insurance?
- The Insurance industry has seen lots of changes in the last fifteen years in India. Most of the changes are related to making companies more efficient and processes better. However, unlike other sectors we have not seen Insurance companies redefining the customer experience. Only 29 percent of insurance customers are satisfied with their current providers, and we aim to change that statistic.
- One of the biggest reasons for this dissatisfaction is the fact that people think that insurance is full of complexity, right from buying to claiming. We plan to change this, we plan to ‘Make insurance simple’.
And we started this journey to simplicity with the policy documents, where we simplified them to the extent that even 15-year-olds would be able to comprehend them. Our recent social experiment with kids in the age group of 8-15 years is a testament to this simplicity.
From a process pov, our objective was to add convenience and speed to the claims process, which is why we designed processes that work for genuine customers i.e. processes with less of unnecessary scrutiny and enabled making them more efficient through technology.
From a product pov, we made simple but relevant products for people with benefits that would really matter to them.
From a distribution pov, we don’t plan to restrict to any one medium. Therefore we are aggressively working towards enlarging our footprint across both online (Our website, msite&through partners like policybazaar, Amazon, Cleartrip, Flipkart & PayTM) and through our 500+ partners across the country.
Q2. How simple is to buy product online from your site?
What is simple to buy
1. Simple website principles: We follow the rule of one decision at a time with nudges to help customer choose best plan for them.
2. Simple language: We have a friendly language that helps the customer know more about insurance So instead of loading them with options only, we also explain why each recommendation is relevant for them
3. Research feedback loop: We continually do research on the website to search of areas where the customer may get confused or would need aid. And we plan to resolve the issues.
Currently we have launched car insurance on our website and we have received positive reviews on the entire process.
Other areas where we are driving simplicity:
Claims: We have introduced a DIY Self-inspection process through a smartphone wherein all that the customer needs to do is click photos or take a video of the damage and share it with us. This removes delay in the claims process due to inspection and also adds convenience for the customer.
Documents: We have de-jargonized the policy documents for easy comprehension. Also we have created 2 pager summaries that go along with the policy. This is for people who don’t have time to go through the long policy documents but still want to broadly know what their policy covers.
Distribution: We believe that convenience /availability of product on right channel is important hence we have tied up with major e- comm players like policybazaar, Amazon, Flipkart, PayTM, Cleartrip to ensure availability for the consumer when he is actually deciding to buy the product.
Q3. What would be your model of servicing of policies, Claims settlement, acceptance of documents etc?
Making Claims’ simple and easy: An important aspect of the growth so far, has been the super-fast and easy Claims’ settlement across all the products. Right from the claim registration to claim settlement, we have challenged the status quo:
Introduced Audio claims. People like to speak to a human when they are in pain and that is exactly what our audio claims process does. Once a customer calls us, s/he doesn’t have to fill any forms for claim registration, we fill it for them.
Also, we have tried to eliminate the friction at the time of claims through our paperless process. We are settling claims through remote diagnostics for Mobile and through customer self-inspection of a damaged car, which has reduced the claims’ settlement times drastically and made it seamless. Even for travel, we have a 2 step paperless claims process.
Motor Insurance:
80% of the claims have been approved within 24 hours of customers’/workshops providing the details of the damaged car
95% of the claims get done through Video/Remote video inspection
20% of the cases are using Pick up and Drop facility as of now
Mobile Insurance:
94% of the claims have been approved within 24 hours of customers’ doing the self-inspection on their smartphones
77% of the claims get done through Video/Self- diagnostics app
Travel Insurance:
Proactive claim intimation to the customer
100% of our claims are automated – Reported and settled via customers’ smartphone
Q4. Which are the areas of business you are focusing on initially?
We have launched our products across 3 broad categories as of now Motor (4W, 2W, Commercial vehicles), Travel (International & Domestic) & Personal accessories (Mobile handset insurance, Jewellery). We are working on launching our next set of products across Health Insurance & Home.
