The chief executive officer and managing director of IndiaFirst Life Insurance, Dr P Nandagopal, says that the insurer is trying to usher in complete transparency in its operations with its customers

Will you be selling all your products online? Will you offer lower premium for such online sales?

All our products can be purchased through our website. The policy that is available online for lower premium is the 'IndiaFirst Anytime Plan', which is a pure term insurance plan. The other policies are offered at the same premium online or through other channels. It is because even in online channels, there will be personnel involved to help via live chat or in other ways. It is not about lower premiums-it is complete transparency we are giving to customers. We are offering customers an (online) experience, even if there is no immediate financial benefit for us. Instead of pushing the product, we want to generate pull for buying insurance.

In that case, wouldn't customers do all the research on the website and purchase the policy from other channels like bancassurance?

We are fine with that. We have not set any target for fiduciary benefits for our initiative. The results may not be immediate, but we want to provide value-added services to customers.

Is the pure term insurance plan only offered through the online channel?

No, it will also be offered through other channels like bancassurance, which constitute 95% of our sales. The premium for pure term plans through bancassurance will be slightly more than the online channel.

How many products do you offer? What is your mix of products? Does ULIP offer advantages over traditional plans?

We have about half-a-dozen products with a mix of ULIPs, traditional and term plans. The risk cover is important not just in the unfortunate incident of a death, but also for living years. Long-term savings and protection are important aspects of insurance products. Insurance has to be a long-term product to take benefit of rupee cost averaging and behavioural aspect of period savings. ULIPs certainly offer lot of advantages over traditional products in terms of transparency, lower charges and flexibility of investments. Asset allocation can be easily rebalanced over the period between equity and debt to follow a proper financial plan.  

Will the 'LifeStore' offer help during the claims process? How smooth is claims settlement for death claims?

Yes. The customer can track the claim status online. This will also be available for death claims and not just maturity claims. The fund value is released without much delay to the nominee. The sum assured of insurance may take more time if there is need for (an) investigation. We have even paid death claims within two days in some cases. I am willing to expose my entire plans, each claims ratio. Every genuine claim has to be paid; but (obviously), fraudulent claims cannot be paid. Fraud does take place in some cases. For example, people suffering from cancer try to buy insurance, hiding their ailment details. It is wrong. This is a business of trust.

Will you be offering fund performance transparency like mutual funds? Can you also show that your fund performance is comparable to a good mutual fund scheme?

If there is any mutual fund or life insurance company that is more transparent than ours, please let me know. We give detailed fund performance including the Sharpe ratio (a measure of the excess return, or risk premium per unit of risk in an investment asset or a trading strategy). We will compare with indices with which we are legally allowed to compare. We cannot show comparison with mutual fund performance. Moreover, the performance has to be seen over the long-term period and not just one year. Insurance products are long-term in nature.

What is the cost of technology for your new initiative?

We have spent about Rs15 crore to Rs20 crore for the entire technology setup including hardware and all other peripheral costs.

IndiaFirst had launched the 'Ask Apply Get' (AAG) process to buy life insurance in three minutes (after the decision to buy insurance). The policy documents are also emailed in three minutes. How does it really help customers?

It's about starting the risk coverage immediately as well as the investment money starting to give returns. The customer can take his own time to make a decision. Once they make the decision, they will get the policy document in three minutes and exactly know their financial investment and insurance. It is (about) giving power to customers. Around 20% of our customers are outside the AAG norm and out of the remaining, 35% avail of the service. There is good scope of reaching out to more customers.