Digit Insurance: Using Cloud and API to Make the Insurance Process Simple

Filing for and claiming insurance can be a painstakingly long and complicated process for the less informed. Due to these hassles people are also known to have abandoned the process of claiming an insurance altogether. However, cloud, digitization and application programming interface (API) have now come to the rescue of those unaware of the insurance process.

General Insurance company Digit Insurance, which was started in November 2017, has applied cloud and application programming interface to simplify the insurance process. Started by Kamesh Goyal, who has been associated in the insurance space for over two decades, and  backed by Fairfax Group, which is amongst the largest General Insurance companies in the world, Digit is re-imagining products and redesigning processes to provide simple and transparent insurance solutions, that matter to consumers.

Digit Insurance is a conventional insurance company that started with the aim of making the insurance process easier for consumers with the aid of technology, says Mr Philip Varghese, Executive Director, Digit Insurance. For instance, if a consumer has purchased a travel insurance, all flights that are covered under the insurance will be tracked on a real time basis through an API integration with an external information provider. Therefore, the moment a flight is delayed, Digit Insurance sends out a message to the customer so that he/she can proactively register a claim. So, before a customer recognizes that there is a claim, the company gets in touch with the customer to make them aware of a claim, he says.

Digit Insurance’s entire technology platform is completely based on AWS in Mumbai. The company is also building another unit in Chennai on Microsoft Azure. The advantages of cloud are that it enables the company to make the insurance process quicker and to form API integration with partners faster. The company emphasizes on the need to form as many API integrations with partners as possible, so as to make transactions with Digit Insurance easier. For example, a consumer filling in their personal details once while buying a mobile device should be enough, and they need not have to do it again while buying an insurance; Cloud and API makes it extremely simple and possible.

Mr V Philip adds that moving from the manual process to a completely digital platform does not necessarily mean that employment will be hit. Digitization creates employment opportunities in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning in turn. Digit Insurance, Mr V Philip says, has a pre-inspection app which enables customers to file their insurance claims by shooting a video of their product and uploading it on the app. While AI and ML models help in authenticating these claims faster, Digit Insurance has also hired a tech team to oversee this process.

Mr V Philip has vast experience in the Insurance space and emphasizes on the need to invest into technology to make businesses more efficient. Technology always brings about efficiency in terms of turnaround time and customer satisfaction, and hence there is a need to build technology in order to do that, says Mr V Philip.