Bharti AXA Life rolls out combo product in Covid-19 times

Focussing on a customer-centric approach to its product development strategy, Bharti AXA Life Insurance has come up with a combo product that provides an all-in-one solution for life cover, hospitalisation, accident and critical illness amid the scare and spread of Covid-19 pandemic.

This product has been designed solely based on customer feedback.

“The new combo product ‘Health and Life Secure’ is a step in that direction to meet this need and has been rolled out based on the findings of a proprietary survey we did. This is expected to be a key differentiator as having all coverages in one plan will save customers from keeping separate policies and paying premium separately for them,” Manik Nangia, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti Enterprises - Financial Services, told BusinessLine in an interview.

Nangia, who anchors strategy and transformation for both the life and general insurance joint ventures of Bharti AXA, said a survey of over 2,300 people by the firm found that human vulnerabilities were on rise during the lockdown and people were worried about personal and family safety. Besides, over 50 per cent of the respondents were also fearful of the economic loss.

“Considering the human vulnerabilities about personal and family safety and health in the unprecedented times and the growing concerns of economic losses of people, we thought to bring protection, hospitalisation, critical illnesses, and personal accident into a combination and introduce ‘Health and Life Secure’.”

Apart from covering 34 critical illnesses and offering hospitalisation benefit up to ₹4.5 lakh per year (including daily hospitalisation stay, ICU facilities and minor or major surgeries), the new combo product comes with two sum assured options of ₹15 lakh and ₹20 lakh. It also gives options to customers to lock into a plan for five or 10 years for those who would prefer to lock into premium rates — given the rising health insurance prices.

Nangia also said that Bharti AXA Life Insurance will this fiscal focus energies on doubling the share of protection products from current 4.5 per cent.

“Strategic intent of the new management is to innovate on product design, customer onboarding process and underwriting methods to win customer trust and preference. Over the quarters we should launch more products in the protection space. This is what the post-Covid world demands. This is also what their google search queries are telling us,” Nangia said.

Upping the digital game

Nangia said that ‘Direct to Consumer’ is a critical part of the strategy in both life and general insurance joint ventures in the days to come. “There is serious effort and commitment on the part of both management and shareholders to grow the ‘direct to consumer’ business’,” he said. Online sales will be an important part of our transformation roadmap.

The new post-Covid-19 environment has made the life insurance companies reimagine the entire sales process, from face-to-face meetings to ‘remotely’ approaching the customer and providing a solution. The sales force has been trained and new digital journeys have been deployed in agency and Bancassurance distribution.

“The journey of digitisation was in progress, the emerging situation has fast-tracked its adoption. We have a roadmap towards creating a virtual office for the seller with an ecosystem of tools to identify a need, share solutions digitally, and onboard customers seamlessly. Our technology teams are excited about the journey. We also trained advisors and staff to adopt digital service touchpoints — for customer service, distributor portals, renewal payment links and online payment methods,” Nangia said.

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