Todd Pruzan, Senior Editor for Analysis and Particular Initiatives at Harvard Enterprise Evaluation, not too long ago sat down with Lee Boon Huat, Group Chief Digital Officer at Prudential plc, to speak about how Prudential makes use of synthetic intelligence and knowledge analytics to boost the degrees of insurance coverage protection in addition to monetary inclusion for communities in Asia and Africa. What follows is a transcription of the highlights of their dialog.
TP: Thanks a lot for being with us immediately.
LBH: It’s a pleasure, Todd. Thanks for having me.
TP: I’d wish to kick off this dialogue by first asking: How is Prudential utilizing expertise to bridge the safety hole and improve monetary resilience?
LBH: The Covid-19 disaster made folks way more conscious of the necessity to have insurance coverage safety. As an example, it revealed that, in massive spots, resembling in Asia and Africa, a majority of the inhabitants is both uninsured or underinsured; sadly, this safety hole is probably going going to widen with rising medical inflation and as folks stay longer. Now, nevertheless, this hole, whereas vast, may be narrowed, particularly with the advances being made in new digital applied sciences.
Right here at Prudential, we’ve got spent the previous few years constructing Pulse by Prudential, a well being and wellness cellular app that has, up to now, garnered roughly 38 million downloads the world over.
Through this app, we are able to attain out to many extra folks throughout Asia and Africa, and it permits us to ship very inexpensive options to them. For instance, in Vietnam, we’ve got supplied most cancers insurance coverage for as little as $0.07 a day. And in Indonesia, we’ve got partnered with an e-payments firm to supply Sharia insurance coverage throughout 34 provinces.
TP: Effectively, these are some very hanging numbers. Would you please inform us just a little bit extra about how Prudential is utilizing knowledge and synthetic intelligence (AI) to deal with these challenges and to realize higher well being outcomes?
LBH: Positive, Todd. To make sure folks can stay nicely for longer, preventive well being care is vital. Now expertise can encourage folks to undertake a more healthy life-style and endure common well being screenings by offering them with knowledge, insights, and nudges. That is one motive we invested in Pulse by Prudential some years in the past.
Through Pulse, we’ve developed many options to assist folks undertake a more healthy life-style. Take, for instance, the Well being Test function that makes use of AI to assist customers higher perceive future illness dangers and makes suggestions relating to actions they’ll take to enhance their well being. These early actions will help mitigate the onset of power ailments like diabetes, which is changing into more and more prevalent throughout Asia and Africa.
One other rewarding function is the Health Tracker, which we use to encourage folks to repeatedly train, and we reward them for doing so by providing them improved insurance coverage protection. Different well being function examples on the app are Signs Checker and Telemedicine; they allow prospects to hunt well timed well being recommendation from wherever, anytime. These are just a few examples relating to how we use knowledge, tech, and AI to assist drive higher outcomes for our customers.
TP: These are some very fascinating examples. Shifting gears barely, Boon Huat, how are you utilizing expertise to complement the shopper expertise and to seize new enterprise alternatives?
LBH: Over the previous few years, we’ve got more and more stepped up our expertise investments and progressively digitalized our consumer providers to enhance our buyer expertise. We’ve additionally improved the productiveness of our monetary consultants to allow them to spend extra of their power on advisory providers. Let me offer you just a few examples.
Beginning with claims, we’ve got, over time, automated the complete end-to-end claims processing journey in order that we are able to enable our prospects to entry providers a lot sooner and luxuriate in a smoother general expertise. Take, as an illustration, throughout a claims journey: we offer our shoppers with a easy and safe platform from which they’ll obtain constant, correct info relating to their declare standing, be it through the cellular app or through the YouTube channel. This has additionally improved the productiveness of our claims brokers.
And we’ve got developed knowledge and AI fashions for our businesses, and this manifests itself in a number of methods: First, through the mannequin, we’ve got recognized the success metrics of our brokers and use that to coach our businesses. Second, we additionally use our mannequin to assist with our recruiting initiatives. Final, to assist with conversion, it permits us to match results in brokers who’ve an acceptable profile.
TP: That’s all very inspiring, Boon Huat. Thanks a lot on your time immediately. It’s been an important dialog, and I actually respect your insights.
LBH: Thanks, Todd.
TP: To study extra, click on the hyperlink beneath.
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