By integrating innovative technologies into our core processes, we are setting new benchmarks in the insurance industry: Soumya Ghosh, CTO, Tata AIA Life Insurance

Soumya Ghosh, Chief Technology Officer at Tata AIA Life Insurance, sheds light on the organisation’s relentless pursuit of innovation to enhance customer experience and streamline operations. From pioneering AI-driven solutions like TASHA to introducing hyper-personalised purchase journeys, Tata AIA is setting new benchmarks in the insurance industry. With a sharp focus on leveraging technology to address consumer demands, balancing AI automation with a human-centric approach, and ensuring robust cybersecurity, Tata AIA continues to redefine industry standards. In this interview, Ghosh delves into the transformative trends shaping the sector, the challenges faced, and the strategies employed to expand into rural markets while integrating sustainability into the company’s ethos.

As Tata AIA Life continues to grow its digital capabilities, what are some of the key technologies or innovations that have significantly enhanced your operations and customer experience?

At Tata AIA Life, we are steadfast in our commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to streamline operations and enrich our customer experience. Two pivotal innovations have been at the forefront of our digital transformation journey: our GenAI-powered conversational chatbot, TASHA, and our streamlined 3-click purchase journey for insurance offers.

TASHA, our advanced conversational AI, has revolutionised the way we interact with our customers. Since its inception, TASHA has handled over 7.5 million interactions with a remarkable goal completion rate exceeding 98%. This tool allows policyholders to access over 60 services such as policy information review, payment updates, document downloads, and profile updates seamlessly. Notably, TASHA facilitates an industry-first 100% native payment integration over WhatsApp, enhancing the ease of transactions through credit cards, debit cards, and net banking. The impact is evident in our customer satisfaction scores, consistently above 92%, and a 90% reduction in the need to transfer customers to human agents.

On the other hand, our 3-click purchase journey represents a significant leap towards simplifying the insurance buying process. It offers pre-underwritten and pre-approved personalised offers that ensure instant policy issuance without the need for documentation or underwriting. This initiative targets both existing consumers and those new to insurance, providing a simplified, frictionless experience that culminates in guaranteed policy issuance and zero rejections. This approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also drives operational efficiency by utilizing advanced machine learning algorithms.

These technologies are more than just tools; they are integral to our vision of delivering exceptional service and innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our consumers. By integrating such innovations into our core processes, we continue to set new benchmarks in the insurance industry.

What is the current trend in the insurance industry and how do you plan to capitalise on them?

Today’s consumers have increasingly high expectations, seeking experiences that feel uniquely tailored to their needs while also desiring swift, seamless interactions that deliver instant results. In response to these evolving demands, we have been actively enhancing the overall experience we offer to our customers.

To provide personalised experiences, we focus on several key elements. Our approach includes offering hyper-personalised deals and promotions that align with individual customer preferences, making each interaction feel exclusive and meaningful. Additionally, we ensure a consistent and customised experience across all digital touchpoints, whether customers engage with us through our app, portal, or other platforms, creating a cohesive and user-centric journey. Complementing these efforts, our communications are thoughtfully designed to address the specific needs and expectations of each customer, reinforcing a sense of personalisation and engagement.

For instant gratification, we emphasize both purchase and service enhancements. On the purchase side, we enable the instant issuance of policies to customers who take advantage of our offers, ensuring a streamlined and hassle-free process. On the service front, we empower customers with access to more than 60 policy servicing transactions available on our app, portal, and TASHA platform. These transactions are supported by real-time fulfillment of servicing requests, delivering quick resolutions and elevating customer satisfaction. Through these efforts, we continue to align with the modern consumer’s expectations for speed, convenience, and personalisation.

Given the ongoing digital transformation in the insurance sector, how does Tata AIA balance the use of AI and automation with maintaining a personalised, customer-centric approach?

Tata AIA strategically harnesses AI and automation to enhance our service delivery while ensuring that our approach remains deeply personalised and customer-centric. This balance is achieved through two primary avenues: enhancing the capabilities of our distribution force and delivering superior customer experience.

a) Distribution:

• Tasha as a coach: Our advanced AI, Tasha, has evolved from a mere chatbot to a sophisticated coaching tool for agents. It offers personalised onboarding support, facilitates effective lead management by providing advisors with tools such as lead scoring and conversion-enhanced content, and assists in training and performance assessments. These AI-driven capabilities enable our advisors to deliver tailored advice and maintain a high touch with consumers, ensuring personalised interaction that values their unique needs and preferences.

b) Enriching customer interactions:

• Smart customer acquisition: AI tools help us recommend the best-suited products and offers to consumers by analysing their past interactions and predicting future needs based on real-time data. This proactive approach in product recommendation and engagement ensures that each customer feels their unique needs are understood and met.
• Tailored financial advisory: Through AI-powered tools, we conduct in-depth financial wellness reviews and portfolio optimization, allowing us to offer customised advice that aligns with individual financial goals and changing life circumstances.
• 24/7 concierge service: On the customer front, Tasha acts as a 24/7 concierge, addressing queries about policies, claims, and benefits in real-time. This not only offers convenience but also personalises the interaction by providing accurate, context-specific information that is accessible anytime.

By integrating AI into both agent support and direct customer interaction, we ensure that our digital advancements augment rather than replace the human touch. We believe that the true value of technology lies in its ability to enhance relationships and personalisation in the consumer journey, making every interaction more meaningful and impactful. Thus, Tata AIA Life continues to deliver highly personalised, responsive, and efficient insurance solutions that meet our consumers’ evolving needs.

With increasing cyber threats, what is your strategy to protect customer data and maintain system integrity? How does insurance balance innovation with security?

At Tata AIA Life, we recognise that innovation must go hand in hand with robust cybersecurity to protect our customer’s data and maintain the integrity of our systems. As we integrate more digital technologies into our operations, our approach to cybersecurity is comprehensive and proactive, ensuring that both innovation and security are balanced effectively.

1. Strategic cybersecurity investments: We prioritise our investments in cybersecurity by assessing the potential impacts of threats, especially those that target sensitive data such as customer information, financial records, and health details. This prioritisation ensures that the most critical assets are fortified first, reducing potential risks to our stakeholders.
2. Continuous risk assessments: We conduct regular risk assessments to identify and address vulnerabilities within our systems. This ongoing process allows us to stay ahead of emerging threats by updating our defenses in accordance with the latest cybersecurity trends and tactics.
3. Secure-by-Design principles: From the initial stages of product and service development, we implement Secure-by-Design principles. This approach integrates security considerations early in the development process, ensuring that all new products, services, and processes are built with inherent security measures.
4. Integration of DevSecOps practices: We leverage DevSecOps practices to integrate security into every stage of our software development lifecycle. This includes conducting regular security checks, code reviews, and vulnerability scans to ensure that security is an integral part of development, not an afterthought.
5. Data protection measures: To safeguard our customer data during storage and transmission, we implement stringent data protection measures such as encryption, anonymization, and tokenization. These technologies help prevent unauthorised access and ensure that customer data remains confidential and secure.
6. AI-Driven anomaly detection: We utilise advanced AI-driven technologies to monitor our systems in real time for any unusual activity that might indicate a breach or unauthorised access. This capability allows us to respond swiftly to potential security incidents, minimising their impact.

As cloud computing becomes more prevalent, how are you migrating its infrastructure to the cloud? What are the key challenges and benefits of this transition?

As cloud computing becomes increasingly prevalent, Tata AIA is proactively migrating its infrastructure to the cloud, adopting a cloud-first strategy that is pivotal for our application and data estate. This transition is driven by the need for greater scalability and elasticity to align with our dynamic business requirements. An active-active estate by design ensures enhanced reliability and continuous availability of our services.

One of the key benefits of our cloud-first approach is the ability to scale resources on demand, allowing us to efficiently manage business fluctuations without the need for significant upfront investments in physical infrastructure. This flexibility is critical in adapting to changing market conditions and customer needs quickly.

However, the transition to cloud computing also presents some challenges. One significant concern is the mounting run costs associated with cloud services. These costs are being partially mitigated through financial operations and stronger governance around capacity planning and environment usage. 

Another challenge is our dependence on a single cloud provider, which could introduce risks related to service disruptions or vendor lock-in. To address this, we are considering a multi-cloud provider approach.

What are the technological limitations you still see present in the insurance sector?

The insurance sector has made significant strides in embracing technology, but there are still notable technological limitations that challenge the industry. These challenges require ongoing attention and investment to ensure that technology can fully support and enhance the industry’s capabilities.

1. Legacy platforms: Many insurers still operate on outdated legacy platforms that lack flexibility and scalability, making integration with modern technologies challenging. Migrating from these legacy systems to modern platforms is costly and time-consuming
2. Data quality: The quality of legacy data is often poor and data cleanse, even though sophisticated toolsets, is not straight forward. Consumer profiling and risk assessment models that rely on data, not guaranteed to be accurate, struggle to perform at optimal level 
3. Cybersecurity concerns: The growing use of digital channels increases exposure to cyber risks. Trust issues among consumers arise due to concerns about data privacy and potential breaches.

What specific challenges do you face in the rural insurance market, and how is technology helping to overcome them?

With the aim of expanding distribution reach across the country, Tata AIA has opened digitally enabled branches in Tier-3 cities. The branches are equipped with digital solutions and processes that facilitate paperless operations and contactless customer service.

Tata AIA has partnered with CSC e-Governance Services Ltd, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) to provide much-needed life insurance protection to semi-urban households. In line with CSC’s digital processes, Tata AIA offers paperless onboarding to its consumers through the Digital Seva Portal (DSP), which enables Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) to secure their customers with PoS products designed specifically for their needs.

Post-sales customer service provides VLEs with a digital means of serving their customers from their centres. Tata AIA offers digital and physical training to these VLEs on life insurance solutions, sales skills, need analysis, etc. We also provide branding support to these VLEs.

⁠With sustainability becoming a priority for many organisations, what steps is Tata AIA taking to incorporate sustainable practices or products in your operations and offerings?

As sustainability becomes an increasingly critical priority across all sectors, Tata AIA Life Insurance is committed to integrating sustainable practices into our operations and offerings. Our approach encompasses both product innovation and corporate social responsibility initiatives to support a more sustainable future.

1. Sustainable product offerings: One significant step we have taken in this direction is the introduction of the Sustainable Equity Fund, an ESG-focused investment option available through our Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs) and Investment Linked propositions (ILPs). This fund targets investments in businesses that adhere to strong Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles. By focusing on companies that prioritise ethical practices and environmental stewardship, the Sustainable Equity Fund not only promotes sustainability but also aims to generate long-term capital appreciation for our policyholders. This initiative allows our consumers to align their investments with their values, supporting positive change through their financial decisions.
2. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Beyond our products, Tata AIA is deeply committed to incorporating sustainability into our broader business practices through robust CSR initiatives. We allocate 2% of our average net profits towards various CSR activities that emphasize social and environmental sustainability. These initiatives include providing educational scholarships to underprivileged children, with special programs designed to be inclusive of individuals with disabilities and transgender persons. Additionally, we support healthcare and livelihood projects in disadvantaged communities, helping to improve quality of life and promote economic independence. Furthermore, we engage in promoting environmental sustainability through community-based programs, which focus on conserving resources and enhancing environmental awareness.