COVID-19 has created a massive change in the broad spectrum of multi-faceted business industries. And the insurance sector is no exception. While the country faced an unprecedented lockdown period for months, insurance companies have found some highly effective ways to cope with the situation and keep up with their customer dealings.

The COVID-19-affected system has accelerated the growth of massive digital transformation in the insurance industry, which will more likely continue to serve even after the pandemic era. So, let’s take a glance into the wide range of digital transformations that the insurance industry witnessed due to COVID-19.

Making a huge move with the digitized approach

It didn't take much longer for the insurance sector to align with a digitized ecosystem. Most insurance companies are moving their technology architecture to a platform-based approach. To cope with the rapidly changing tech-based environment, insurers need to incorporate a technology architecture in their infrastructure that is flexible enough to evolve and adapt.

Hence, some insurance industry leaders are shifting towards a platform-type architecture to implement newer tools and technologies for better online assistance to consumers. Moreover, to aid the process, IRDAI digitized and standardized many insurance products, which enabled insurers to launch policies having uniform features at affordable pricing to render a seamless digital experience to customers.

Besides, this digitized approach will also help companies reduce potential risks and make modular decisions, further moving towards a better objective of building a robust and agile environment.

Improving digital interaction capabilities 

Even though India possesses a low financial literacy compared to other markets, the importance of face-to-face interaction between clients and insurers is of paramount importance. But COVID-19 has created a boundary line in this mode of interaction.

Thus, the pandemic has winded up the need to shift to digital interaction capability, which is now revolutionizing the Indian insurance sector. As a result, many insurance companies have adopted digitized self-service portals that can be accessed through web browsers or mobile applications.

The interaction efforts made through call centre operations and online messenger apps also highlight this robust transformation phase. Also, AI or ML implementation in chatbots help insurers to deal better with their consumers, leveraging user satisfaction.

Implementing collaboration tools for a better internal approach

The pandemic has made the insurance sector enable its employees to work remotely. Hence, a quick shift to the digital-only approach has become imperative. And this paved the way for the widespread adoption of digital collaboration tools to enhance internal operations and organizational efficiency.

Using the web or cloud-based software, employees and agents of an insurance company can work together with a shared objective. These collaboration tools let them work in a virtual environment with easy information sharing and audio or video conferencing. Thus, it has helped insurance companies to maintain their business workflow even in this pandemic situation and offer consistent services to their customers without any delay or hindrance.

Enhancing scalability through AI-driven systems

The implementation of AI in various areas of the insurance sector like claim settlement, customer interaction, and policy issuance has rendered improved scalability to both front-end and back-end operations.

With the help of AI-driven chatbots on the front end of the website or app, insurers can offer seamless services anywhere and anytime to their customers. Also, they can easily collect valuable data from customers through these chatbots to deliver better outcomes. Thus, it reduces manual effort and improves accuracy in results.

Now, on the back-end, this AI-based data collection method enables insurers to make more accurate decisions on the latest policy-making, underwriting, and new product offerings.

Final thoughts

The insurance industry of India is ever-growing. While other industries are still trying to cope up with the after-effects of the pandemic, the insurance sector has made its shift to digitalization quite smoothly. By acknowledging the importance of advanced technologies, insurers have improved their core models, which can quickly adapt to the trending transformation and enhance agility in terms of product marketing and customer service.