We Have To Ensure Every Interaction With Consumer Builds Trust: Sarbvir Singh

Building trust among consumers is one of the most challenging aspects of selling insurance online. Traditionally, Indian consumers are used to buying insurance through someone they know, someone they can approach instantly whenever there is a service issue. And, while getting an insurance cover online, human involvement is almost negligible when compared to the offline medium.

To overcome this challenge, Policybazaar has been focussing on building trust among consumers with each and every interaction; and by getting the processes right from policy issuance to services.

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“We have to make sure that every interaction builds that trust factor. Even if there are small requests on e-mail like changing address or age by the customer, if you respond quickly, it builds trust,” Sarbvir Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Policybazaar said during a panel discussion organized by Economictimes.com on National Insurance Awareness Day. The session - Is insurance optional or a necessity - was moderated by ET.com editor Deepak Ajwani. 

“On the general insurance front, 40% of requests from customers are processed in less than 24 hours at Policybazaar,” he added.

Focusing on better services has become all the more important in the current situation when the online purchase of insurance has surged amidst the pandemic. The visits-to-bookings conversion rate on Policybazaar’s website for both health and term insurance has quadrupled in the last two months of 2020 vs the same period, a year ago.

This is all being done with the support of the industry. The industry with their digital processes has allowed us to give this kind of service and each of these small touchpoints builds credibility, Singh added.

IMPROVING CLAIMS EXPERIENCE

According to Sarbvir, the second aspect of building trust among consumers is improving their claim experience. “Insurance business is based on a promise. You pay upfront and get the services later. Traditionally, people think that their claim may be denied or something could happen when a claim request is made. The claim is a moment of trauma for a consumer. Having a clear process and a timeline for claim experience helps a lot,” said Singh.

The rising medical costs and expensive treatment for Covid-19 have increased the awareness levels of consumers and their attitude towards buying insurance.

More than 60% of Indians are thinking about buying health insurance after personally facing hefty hospital bills or learning of such experiences from friends, according to an annual survey conducted by Policybazaar.com in June this year. While choosing an insurer, 58% of the respondents consider the claim settlement ratio is an important factor. At present, there are over 2,000 claims that are related to Covid-19 from private hospitals.

“The industry is already working on it but we need to work more on this aspect. Then only we will be able to deliver the promise to the consumers. Sales become easier if the backend is better,” he added.  

Agreeing with Singh’s view that claim settlement is the moment of truth, Anuj Mathur, MD & CEO, Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance said, “the customer is looking at whether the company stands by its promise in an unfortunate event. We truly believe in this. In the last year, we have taken a number of steps to build that confidence to the consumer. Our claim settlement ratio was 94% in 2018 and rose to 98.12% in 2019. My aspiration is that it has to be upwards of 99% this year.” 

(Inputs and editing by: Sunny Lamba)

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