Health insurers given tools to offer better service

Digital technologies are empowering the health insurance business, bringing more benefits to consumers, industry experts said.

"In the past, when insurance companies were serving their customers, they had limited knowledge about the customers' situation and actual needs," said Lu Min, chief executive officer of Shanghai-based high-tech company Nuanwa Technology.

"With digital technologies, insurance companies get a better understanding of how users' situations and demands vary and can therefore offer better services.

"Based on big data technology, companies can establish intelligent platforms to support the companies in offering personalized services at a proper time and in a proper manner," he said.

The company said that it has helped nearly 50 insurance companies gain such insights and improve services. With digital technologies, customers can purchase health insurance within seconds, and when it comes to insurance claims, 30 percent of customers get paid within a day and 90 percent in three days, company officials said.

"With digital technologies, the organization and the efficiency of the sales and service offered by an insurance company are greatly improved," Lu said.

With the government accelerating health insurance reforms and the raising of the public's health risk awareness, China's commercial health insurance market is embracing rapid development, experts said.

Between 2011 and 2020, the premium income of health insurers surged from 69.2 billion yuan ($10.9 billion) to 817.3 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent, according to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. In 2020, health insurance took up 5.8 percent of individual medical expenditures.

In the first half of this year, the premium income of health insurers grew 7.9 percent on a year-on-year basis. The growth rate was much higher than that of the premium income of life insurance, government data showed.

At the beginning of 2020, the government issued a document on deepening health insurance reform, which highlighted the importance of "centering on public health insurance and furthering the role of commercial health insurance" to help relieve patient burdens.

Industry experts said that the government's favorable policies promoted cooperation between commercial insurance companies and health management companies, who built a new digital model integrating insurance and healthcare services. Based on consumer needs, they use digital technologies to offer better drug and health management services to patients.

"Science and technology should be used to build a brand-new insurance ecology, so that insurance can better withstand risks and serve consumers in a more precise manner," according to a statement released by ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co.

"With artificial intelligence and big data analysis, we can offer customers personalized intelligent insurance service to satisfy their needs in different scenarios," the company said, adding that technology allows insurers to "put ourselves in the users' minds to optimize product development and service".

Lu from Nuanwa, speaking of digital transformation trends in the industry, said that many insurance companies are focusing on separate links, such as sales, underwriting or insurance claims.

"When the links are separate from each other, the role of digitalization is limited. The real digitalization is to run data throughout products, services and organizations, and build an entire digital insurance ecology," he said.

Industry experts said that digitalization will be the primary way for customers to interact with insurance companies in the future. What customers expect is a simple and clear product display, one-click shopping, 24-hour online response and customized, innovative products, they said.

Insurance companies need to change their original ways of presenting products and handling service interactions in order to create a humanized, seamless customer experience, the experts said. During the process, innovations in talent, technologies and mechanisms are needed, they added.