This article first appeared in Personal Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on November 2 - 8, 2015.

Only when life, limb and assets are at stake do people seem to realise the need for an insurance policy suited to their needs. With this in mind, AIA Bhd’s new CEO Anusha Thavarajah is leading the charge in changing the way insurance is perceived and sold.

Staying ahead of the game

ANUSHA believes that the insurer must continue to adapt and enhance its products so that it can differentiate its offerings from those of its competitors. “At the end of the day, it’s about upping our service. From a service level perspective, we have to make sure we are the best in the market so that we make life easy for our customers. It is easier said than done, but it’s about taking the right step each day,” she says.

Having had a presence in Malaysia since 1948, AIA has one of the biggest agency forces in the country, with 14,000 agents, as well as a longstanding partnership with Public Bank and Citibank to provide employee benefits. Asia’s third largest insurer acquired ING Groep NV’s insurance business in Malaysia in 2013, doubling its market share in the country to 25%. 

Anusha had worked with her predecessor even before jumping into the hot seat in June, focusing on the complex acquisition of ING. “In last 30 months, our focus has been on picking the best people from both organisations and bringing them together. Also, on setting the foundation … we invested in infrastructure — technology as well as renovating and upgrading our iconic building, which has been there since the 1960s. We moved all the ING staff, who were based in different locations to the building,” she says. 

Anusha has also been busy opening up new offices in the Klang Valley as well as in Seremban, Melaka and Batu Pahat to address the gap there. “Our insurance agents are the first group of agents to actually have the most innovative point-of-sale technologies,” she points out.

Riding the wave of new technology, AIA has installed training modules on iPads to enable its agents to enlist new customers directly. They also negate the need for paperwork and create more efficient processes.

“We have a training facility in Sri Damansara, the AIA Premier Academy, but we have also moved training online into our agents’ hands so they can get trained when they are out on their own. We call it an instant mobile office,” says Anusha.

“They can also recruit new agents, offer financial advice and even submit their cases online. With the latest technology and hardware, we can now issue e-contracts to customers.”

The AIA agents, whom she fondly refers to as “angels on earth”, should feel that they have made a difference in people’s lives by making sure they are financially protected. “Our focus is really to create this wholesome awareness that becoming a professional agent is actually making a difference in someone’s life, and the millennial generation is very much about having flexibility and a sense of being a part of society and making a difference. So, in the next few years, you will see that becoming an insurance life planner will be a career of choice,” says Anusha, whose career in insurance spans more than 20 years. 

The efficient use of technology and social media is bound to set AIA apart from its competitors, she believes. “If you talk to people out there about AIA today, they will say Taylor Swift, or they will say the Music Run, or they will say K-Pop. It’s not just about having fun, but about being part of the younger generation and making insurance come alive,” Anusha says, referring to the campaigns the insurer has organised over the past year to attract millennials. 

Having secured the foundation,  she says AIA’s objectives — as its slogan goes “The Real Life Company” — are geared towards being service-oriented as consumers become savvier and competition gets stiffer. 

“Our focus is not [just] on selling insurance. We want to make sure we create awareness of what insurance and takaful really are and that every Malaysian understands the importance of having them. We have given our life planners this tool where it is easy for them to sell [policies]. We have moved away from selling and are zeroing in on financial planning,” she adds.

“At every point, we want to be partners in their lives. Say, an individual has bought a medical insurance policy at a certain stage but as time passes, inflation happens, so the cost of admission increases and room board rates go up. But we keep in touch with him and constantly engage with him so that he understands what’s happening.

“Over time, they will upgrade their cover, so the policies we offer today are not a fixed product but flexible as consumers’ needs constantly change. Our products are centred on making sure we give consumers what they want. So, we will continue to enhance and stay ahead by understanding the consumers’ needs and meeting their expectations.”

Anusha says there is greater awareness now as more insurance players come up with different plans suited to different needs. She cites as an example AIA’s A-Life Cancer360 policy, where policyholders diagnosed with early-stage cancer will receive an upfront payment of 30% of the coverage amount or sum assured to enable them to seek immediate treatment. In the 6th and 12th month of their diagnosis, they will receive 10% of the coverage amount as a Recovery Reward to support them financially during the first critical year post-diagnosis.

“If the cancer that is detected early does not advance in the first year of diagnosis, the plan’s Power Reset feature automatically resets the coverage amount to 100%. This ensures that the customer can enjoy full coverage should there be a need to fight cancer again,” she says, adding that underwriting is still required, but applicants will only be assessed on their cancer-related risks. 

Anusha is spearheading AIA Vitality, a health and insurance programme that partners customers to help them live healthier lives. It is slated for launch in the middle of next year. 

“It is to show that we are not just here to do the morbid stuff of paying when something unfortunate happens, but to partner our customers from day one, to help them live a healthy life … this is a game-changer,” she says. 

AIA has partnered South Africa’s largest insurer, Discovery, which has been running the programme for the last two decades. Under the programme, customers are incentivised for making healthy choices. 

Keeping in mind that many face the problem of understanding insurance jargon, the insurer is working on revamping its policies to contain simpler terms. “The challenge is changing the perception so that insurance is not just something to be sold, but something that people want. It should be something that people treat as part and parcel of life. The reality is, if you buy the right type of product at the right level of cover, what you [pay] each month is not a lot,” says Anusha.

“Relative to the other types of expenses you may have, this effectively means you are disciplined and that you are putting aside an affordable amount of money every month. [This will ensure that] at the time when you need extra help, you are able to actually meet that need.”

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