Tatiana Puchkova, AlfaStrakhovanie: “I personally promise to pay attention to every startup”
Our interview with Tatyana Puchkova, Deputy General Director of AlfaStrakhovanie, about the features of insurance business, big data analysis, telematics, risk assessment, healthy lifestyles and the first insurance accelerator Insurtech Lab'2017 .
- If banks have long ago formed the “agenda” in financial technological innovations. How relevant are technological innovations for insurance companies?
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Tatyana Puchkova: New technologies in insurance (“insurtech”), as one of the trends of fintech, appeared quite recently - not even five years have passed. Insurance companies compete in the market not only among themselves - we are fighting for the client’s wallet and with banks and with a number of related industries. For example, if the technology of insurance of passengers did not appear in insurance companies, it would have arisen from airlines or travel agencies. Thus, if we do not offer the insurance product on time, then it is more likely that it will appear at the producers of insurance objects. That is why we cannot lag behind in the digitalization from the financial market and retail. Otherwise, alas, we will be forced out, as banks were once ousted from car insurance. From the point of view of digitalization, we are lagging behind them, but we are ahead in building partnerships, in which we have extensive experience, since the insurance market consists of 90% of sales on the side of partners.
- In banking, one of the drivers for the development of Fintech was the explosive growth of data, fundamentally new opportunities for analytics appeared ...
Tatyana Puchkova: Big data analytics, databases, scoring models - insurance cannot live without all this. After all, insurers must first determine the likelihood of an insured event, for which the machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are used. But here too, insurtech is only at the very beginning. For example, we really need help in identifying fraud, fraud, which distorts the whole picture of insurance and does not allow us to offer good customers favorable rates, because we have to cover fraud losses. We need assistance in fraud clustering, perhaps it will be possible with additional information from social networks.
Analytics is also needed to analyze the data that we have accumulated online. About a million sessions take place on our site per month, and for the time being we are just learning how to analyze customer behavior. Over the past year, we have accumulated a large database that could be analyzed using AI technologies. Website visitors are the target stream, and we, of course, would like to increase the conversion of these visits to sales.
Tatyana Puchkova, Member of the Board and Deputy General Director, AlfaStrakhovanie
- What aspects of the insurance business will be most exposed to digital transformation? Where is the place for startups making?
Tatyana Puchkova: Insurance rests on three pillars: a service factory, sales, and what can be called "social insurance." Sales move to the objects of insurance, they occur where the object is located. And in the future, a person will insure exactly where he buys a car, an apartment, and so on.
“Service Factory” is the service we provide when the insured event has already occurred. When a client has trouble, he wants to hear a live person on the other end of the line and first of all he calls his insurance company. No matter how travel agencies offer their services in such cases, customers still call insurers. Now we need to digitalize work with incoming calls, so that it is convenient and fast, and at the same time that the client is connected with the entire line of the service factory - clinics, workshop, repair of gadgets. And for all this we need modern technology.
In our service, we deal with document flow between many organizations. There are still a lot of paper documents that we have to enter into the systems. For example, we manually check how well clinics accounts correspond to diseases. And in such situations we, of course, would like to reduce the role of the human factor.
Until now, much has been done manually and in the settlement of damages. We want to bring automation of loss determination up to 90%, for example, to determine damage to a car using heat maps.
One of the fastest growing markets is gadget insurance. In the world there is a technology that allows you to determine at a distance the nature of a gadget breakdown, but we are forced to demand that the owner of the gadget comes to the office and conduct an examination.
- The fashionable trend in digital technology is the Internet of Things (IoT). I have heard a lot about telematics. How can this affect the insurance business?
Tatyana Puchkova: Telematics is a part of the Internet of things. We, of course, would like to see risk at a distance. In Italy, there is a “mother care” product when the nursing home is stuffed with sensors, and if an elderly person, for example, forgets to turn off the tap or turn off the stove, the insurance company calls him and says so.
There are great opportunities for telematics application in the corporate sector, because the main problem of corporate parks is that it is impossible to control what hired drivers are doing with cars.
- How does insurtech affect the behavior of insurance companies?
Tatyana Puchkova: The third pillar of insurance is the prevention of a healthy lifestyle, safe driving, and so on. This can be called "socially responsible insurance." These include, for example, bracelets that control a person’s health. Another example is the use of telematics to encourage safe driving. We plan to earn points for safe driving, which the client can spend on our products and on the products of our partners. In general, the installation of a healthy lifestyle greatly reduces our unprofitability, and here we also need technology. There are ideas in this area, but, unfortunately, very few implemented services.
- And yet, insurtech, innovation - is this a business for you? Or until it all goes according to the cost of R & D?
Tatyana Puchkova: Over the past three years, we have made great strides in the use of technology. This has led to a large number of new products. So, 60% of policyholders today buy products online. Millions of our clients already use personal accounts. It is clear that online sales are developing easier than settling losses, but we are also growing in this direction: online, people sign up for clinics and settle insurance claims.
“Startups are quite skeptical about the willingness of big companies like yours to work with innovators. Now we are launching together the first specialized accelerator in the field of insurtech. Is there any guarantee that you will take startups seriously?
Tatyana Puchkova: As for our accelerator Insurtech Lab with you, I invite startups to submit applications and promise that I will personally see each project. I guarantee my personal support to all interesting ideas. If we understand that we are likely to take the project at least 10% and combine it with our technology to make a real innovation, we will definitely try. As a board member and deputy general director of AlfaStrakhovanie, I promise my personal support for start-ups.
About Accelerator Insurtech Lab
Insurtech Lab'2017 - accelerator for insurance FINTECH startups. The program partners are AlfaStrakhovanie, VTB Insurance and Sberbank Insurance. Strategic consultant - Accenture. Participation in the accelerator will give projects the opportunity to launch real pilots with leading insurance companies, undergo training and acceleration programs with the best experts and mentors in the industry.
Acceptance of applications - until November 12, the beginning of the program - November 22, the duration - three months.
- If banks have long ago formed the “agenda” in financial technological innovations. How relevant are technological innovations for insurance companies?
')
Tatyana Puchkova: New technologies in insurance (“insurtech”), as one of the trends of fintech, appeared quite recently - not even five years have passed. Insurance companies compete in the market not only among themselves - we are fighting for the client’s wallet and with banks and with a number of related industries. For example, if the technology of insurance of passengers did not appear in insurance companies, it would have arisen from airlines or travel agencies. Thus, if we do not offer the insurance product on time, then it is more likely that it will appear at the producers of insurance objects. That is why we cannot lag behind in the digitalization from the financial market and retail. Otherwise, alas, we will be forced out, as banks were once ousted from car insurance. From the point of view of digitalization, we are lagging behind them, but we are ahead in building partnerships, in which we have extensive experience, since the insurance market consists of 90% of sales on the side of partners.
- In banking, one of the drivers for the development of Fintech was the explosive growth of data, fundamentally new opportunities for analytics appeared ...
Tatyana Puchkova: Big data analytics, databases, scoring models - insurance cannot live without all this. After all, insurers must first determine the likelihood of an insured event, for which the machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are used. But here too, insurtech is only at the very beginning. For example, we really need help in identifying fraud, fraud, which distorts the whole picture of insurance and does not allow us to offer good customers favorable rates, because we have to cover fraud losses. We need assistance in fraud clustering, perhaps it will be possible with additional information from social networks.
Analytics is also needed to analyze the data that we have accumulated online. About a million sessions take place on our site per month, and for the time being we are just learning how to analyze customer behavior. Over the past year, we have accumulated a large database that could be analyzed using AI technologies. Website visitors are the target stream, and we, of course, would like to increase the conversion of these visits to sales.
- What aspects of the insurance business will be most exposed to digital transformation? Where is the place for startups making?
Tatyana Puchkova: Insurance rests on three pillars: a service factory, sales, and what can be called "social insurance." Sales move to the objects of insurance, they occur where the object is located. And in the future, a person will insure exactly where he buys a car, an apartment, and so on.
“Service Factory” is the service we provide when the insured event has already occurred. When a client has trouble, he wants to hear a live person on the other end of the line and first of all he calls his insurance company. No matter how travel agencies offer their services in such cases, customers still call insurers. Now we need to digitalize work with incoming calls, so that it is convenient and fast, and at the same time that the client is connected with the entire line of the service factory - clinics, workshop, repair of gadgets. And for all this we need modern technology.
In our service, we deal with document flow between many organizations. There are still a lot of paper documents that we have to enter into the systems. For example, we manually check how well clinics accounts correspond to diseases. And in such situations we, of course, would like to reduce the role of the human factor.
Until now, much has been done manually and in the settlement of damages. We want to bring automation of loss determination up to 90%, for example, to determine damage to a car using heat maps.
One of the fastest growing markets is gadget insurance. In the world there is a technology that allows you to determine at a distance the nature of a gadget breakdown, but we are forced to demand that the owner of the gadget comes to the office and conduct an examination.
- The fashionable trend in digital technology is the Internet of Things (IoT). I have heard a lot about telematics. How can this affect the insurance business?
Tatyana Puchkova: Telematics is a part of the Internet of things. We, of course, would like to see risk at a distance. In Italy, there is a “mother care” product when the nursing home is stuffed with sensors, and if an elderly person, for example, forgets to turn off the tap or turn off the stove, the insurance company calls him and says so.
There are great opportunities for telematics application in the corporate sector, because the main problem of corporate parks is that it is impossible to control what hired drivers are doing with cars.
- How does insurtech affect the behavior of insurance companies?
Tatyana Puchkova: The third pillar of insurance is the prevention of a healthy lifestyle, safe driving, and so on. This can be called "socially responsible insurance." These include, for example, bracelets that control a person’s health. Another example is the use of telematics to encourage safe driving. We plan to earn points for safe driving, which the client can spend on our products and on the products of our partners. In general, the installation of a healthy lifestyle greatly reduces our unprofitability, and here we also need technology. There are ideas in this area, but, unfortunately, very few implemented services.
- And yet, insurtech, innovation - is this a business for you? Or until it all goes according to the cost of R & D?
Tatyana Puchkova: Over the past three years, we have made great strides in the use of technology. This has led to a large number of new products. So, 60% of policyholders today buy products online. Millions of our clients already use personal accounts. It is clear that online sales are developing easier than settling losses, but we are also growing in this direction: online, people sign up for clinics and settle insurance claims.
“Startups are quite skeptical about the willingness of big companies like yours to work with innovators. Now we are launching together the first specialized accelerator in the field of insurtech. Is there any guarantee that you will take startups seriously?
Tatyana Puchkova: As for our accelerator Insurtech Lab with you, I invite startups to submit applications and promise that I will personally see each project. I guarantee my personal support to all interesting ideas. If we understand that we are likely to take the project at least 10% and combine it with our technology to make a real innovation, we will definitely try. As a board member and deputy general director of AlfaStrakhovanie, I promise my personal support for start-ups.
About Accelerator Insurtech Lab
Insurtech Lab'2017 - accelerator for insurance FINTECH startups. The program partners are AlfaStrakhovanie, VTB Insurance and Sberbank Insurance. Strategic consultant - Accenture. Participation in the accelerator will give projects the opportunity to launch real pilots with leading insurance companies, undergo training and acceleration programs with the best experts and mentors in the industry.
Acceptance of applications - until November 12, the beginning of the program - November 22, the duration - three months.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/342004/
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