E-signatures and paperless insurance applications

Late in 2020, Forrester surveyed 450 automation and artificial intelligence (AI) decision makers, as well as 450 individual contributors across business departments, and the decision makers estimated another 40-percent increased investment in automation over the next two years across the entire enterprise, from the front office to the back office and everywhere in between.

For example, in the insurance sector, AIA rolled out its first-in-market, 100-percent paperless insurance applications on tablet devices. It chose a RPA vendor to integrate secure biometric e-signature capabilities with its iPoS (Interactive Point of Sales) solution.

When AIA launched its iPoS project in Singapore in 2012, it wanted to helps its advisors prepare less for customer meetings and go from one customer meeting to another without having to carry brochures, flyers, forms and supplements for various situations, so it was important to have a complete and completely paperless sales process on a tablet, and therefore, e-Signatures were a critical component of any solution.

However, knowing that its e-signature solution would be the first of its kind amongst insurers in most markets and that they would have to present their case for it to the regulators, so they had to be prudent in the e-signature solution they chose.

So, AIA chose this vendor technology to integrate e-signature capabilities in its iPoS on Apple iPads. The iPoS solution guides the agent and the customers through a structured and needs-based sales process during meetings and adds an element of fun through the interactive design. Toward the end of the process, the customer can apply and sign directly on the tablet screen, and the integrated camera captures attachments such as their ID card.

AIA’s iPoS/e-signature solution, incorporating the vendor’s e-signature technology, provides:-

1) Secure biometric signature

The e-signature captures not only the image, but also the sequence, speed and acceleration of strokes. The signature can then be embedded, encrypted and hashed with the PDF document, which ensures that the original document cannot be altered.

2) Easy integration and time to market

When AIA first evaluated various e-signature solutions, iOS software development know-how was still scarce, at least in Asia. This solution enabled AIA to easily integrate the e-signature technology within iPoS on iPads for a quick launch.

3) Renowned and reliable e-signature solution

E-signed documents usually have a lifespan of many years, so AIA wanted to make sure that it could access, read and verify an e-signed document over many years to come. AIA was quite satisfied with the robustness of the solution, particularly through the journey of various iOS upgrades.

The Results

Since then, AIA has deployed its iPoS solution across 11 countries in Asia: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong. Currently over 30,000 financial advisors are using iPoS and submitting insurance applications with e-signature via iPoS.

It’s key benefits realised include improved customer engagement, increased advisor productivity and faster turnaround time.