Aegon Life Insurance Company’s policy sales online have doubled over the past year, said Martjin de Jong, Chief Digital Officer, Aegon Life Insurance. He expects this pace to continue in the immediate future – this year and next.

Martjin said the demonetisation drive would give a fillip to the digital drive of the company and along with other factors such as a young population, high growth in national income and the hunger for data/info would help improve the proportion of digital sales for the company.

Aegon Life currently derives about 35 per cent of its sales online. According to industry estimates, only about 2-3 per cent of insurance customers buy their policies online. Martjin said even if the number moves to 10 per cent the volume of the market offered great potential for all companies.

He said the persistency ratio for online customers was as high as 93 per cent, whereas the same ratio for customers acquired through the agency channel was generally half the number.

He attributed the improved numbers in the online channel to targeting specific segments, based on analytics, customised products and the use of technology and improved platforms. The idea behind focusing on the digital medium was to help customers buy products that were easy to understand, purchase, underwrite and use, he said. Besides, there was significant cost saving in using the online channel, he added, while declining to quantify the exact nature of gains.

Aegon Life’s first year premium from life insurance policy sales was down nearly 50 per cent to ₹39 crore for the eight-month period till November 2016 compared to the same period in the previous year.

During the same eight-month period, the life insurance industry grew 26 per cent to ₹28,141 crore.

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