ICICI Pru taps the net-savvy to log 150% growth

The focus on technology to beef up premium collection has helped ICICI Prudential Life Insurance garner Rs 600 crore of premium collection in fiscal year 2009, a 150 per

cent rise over the past financial year.

According to the insurer, leveraging online platforms such as online payment of premium through internet banking, integrated voice response (IVR) and mobile payments has helped make the premium collection channel successful.

With customers getting more comfortable in using technology, insurers are also betting big on the information technology (IT) platform. For ICICI Prudential, which offers the option of payment of premium through the internet, through voice-aided phone banking and mobile payment, leveraging technology has meant cutting costs to a great extent.

For processing every cheque that the customer uses to pay the premium, the insurer has to spend Rs 6-8 based on whether it is an intra or an inter-city cheque. But for online payments, the cost is brought down to just Rs 2-3 per transaction for the company.

“We have collected Rs 600 crore last year with more than 400,000 transactions online. The amount of these transactions range mainly between Rs 10,000-25,000,” Pankaj Sharma, senior vice-president and head, business excellence, ICICI Prudential, told Financial Chronicle.

ICICI Prudential has tied up with 25 banks, which allow theircustomers to use net banking to make premium payments.

In addition, tie-ups with payment gateways and Visa, MasterCard and American Express have also offered more payment options to customers.

According to Sharma, customers are still not very comfortable in paying premium online while buying a policy.

Customers are primarily from metropolitan cities than tier-II and tier-III cities. Of the 19,00,000 customers that use the insurer’s website, there are 850,000 transactions processed online a year.

“Most of these transactions are for premium payment, checking the Net Asset Value (NAV) and making switches in case of unit-linked insurance policies (Ulips). Around 70 per cent of the switches that happen in Ulips are done online,” Sharma said. There are around 30,000 switches recorded a month for the insurer.

Source:Mydigitalfc