[GRTV] AIA talks affordability, products and AI

AIA’s Maddie Sherlock and Alex Kühnast recently sat down with GRTV to discuss the most recent news from AIA, and how it’s moving to meet the needs of advisers and their clients.
Chief customer officer Maddie Sherlock took over the role from Angela Busby in January, who has in turn moved to the role of chief distribution officer. Sherlock has since spent time on the road with AIA’s claims and business development teams, which she says has been invaluable for gaining insights.

“I’ve been really interested in collecting information and understanding how me and my role can support our customers and advisers,” Sherlock says.

“The feedback from both advisers and customers is consistent. One thing that’s really important to them from a customer operations perspective is turnaround time.”

Recent research done through Kantar showed that customer expectations are changing. Where they previously sat around 3-5 days, customers now expecting a resolution within 24 hours.

That’s where AI comes in. Sherlock says that AI experimentation is in full swing, and AIA has already rolled out some AI use cases into its contact centre, including automation of call transcripts and summaries. She says there is potential for AI to be used on the underwriting side too - particularly for summaries of medical notes, which can be hundreds of pages long.

“For us to condense that down into the most important information - that’s time off the assessment, that’s getting offer of terms out faster, and getting customer certainty quicker,” Sherlock said.

Alex Kühnast, chief product and marketing officer said that with rising costs across healthcare, pricing has also been a critical focus this year.

“People are under pressure and are looking to save money where they can, so affordable options for customers are certainly front of mind,” he said.

“I’ve also been having a good time meeting with a lot of advisers and getting their feedback, and they’ve really helped us to identify where we need to focus our product development.”

Kühnast noted that Vitality has remained a “critical” part of AIA’s offering. AIA currently has around 75,000 members on the program, which offers premium discounts of up to 20%, as well as various other rewards. The program paid out over $14 million in rewards last year, and its wellbeing initiatives have yielded some tangible results.

“Through some of our recent campaigns like the Mole Map campaign, we saw 111 malignant melanomas identified and 254 pre-malignant,” Kühnast said. “That really helps policyholders to take action and improve their wellbeing.”

AIA is currently looking to release other enhancements and products later this year. For more insights, see the full interview on GRTV.