A Digital First

The decision to launch a completely online term product reflected both Oman Insurance’s commitment to product and process innovation, as well as the rapid evolution of digital capabilities and growing user willingness to transact in the cyber environment.

The DigiTerm and DigiCI products offer the same expansive coverage that is available under a conventional policy secured via a paper-based process but are delivered at a fraction of the time. Whereas, the typical lifecycle of a manually underwritten policy can be a few days, via the electronic system transactions can be completed within minutes.

The portal also provides customers with significant policy flexibility, enabling them to select the most appropriate levels of sums assured and duration of policy. Cover of up to AED 1 million is available via the system with secure payment processing ensuring that every stage in the policy purchasing journey is catered for within the simple-to-use electronic platform.

Starting the journey

Taking the product online required Oman Insurance to put in place the digital infrastructure to map every stage in the process, from the ‘front-of-house’ customer portal, through to report generation, data security requirements, KYC/AML compliance processes and procedures and validation steps, and right through to the reinsurance component underpinning the products.

Kane Solutions’ proprietary IMS platform delivered the capability to manage each of these stages within a single, fluid, interconnected system. Oman Insurance had appointed the firm in April 2016 to provide Third Party Administration to the existing book. The project included the migration of their existing business from their legacy platform onto IMS. To date, along with a successful migration, five new products have been delivered, including DigiTerm and DigiCI.

The plan for DigiTerm and DigiCI started with mapping out and developing a product journey which would deliver a fully online purchasing experience to the end customer, including online payment.

The portal also provides customers with significant policy flexibility, enabling them to select the most appropriate levels of sums assured and duration of policy. Cover of up to AED 1 million is available via the system with secure payment processing ensuring that every stage in the policy purchasing journey is catered for within the simple-to-use electronic platform.

Taking it one step at a time

A multi-stage process was put in place, which encompassed the following phases:

• Product idea generation – Oman Insurance outlined the primary objectives of the proposed product and the method for delivery to Kane Solutions.
• Review process – Kane Solutions reviewed the product specification, working closely with Oman Insurance to ensure a complete understanding of every component of the products.
• Solution mode – Kane Solutions designed a process within IMS to cater for the envisaged product, emphasizing key features and benefits, while also ensuring the technology supported a fully digital customer acquisition strategy, including credit card merchant integration for a seamless payment experience and digital delivery of policy documents.
• Refining the solution – Kane Solutions and Oman Insurance reviewed and refined this process paying particular attention to the end customers’ experience, resulting in a signed-off specification and build plan for IMS.
• The build phase – Kane Solutions built the functionality and customer journey into IMS and conducted extensive functionality testing of each component of the products and processes, before releasing to Oman Insurance in a test environment for approval prior to production.

Overcoming challenges along the way

The primary challenges generated by the build and launch of the online system were not related to the specific features of the platform or the products themselves, but rather stemmed from the demand to ensure that the end-to-end customer journey was as streamlined and efficient as possible. A further challenge was generated by the need to integrate the system with a third-party credit card merchant, ensuring that the acquisition of the insurance product was completed at the point of payment.

Critical to the ability of the Kane Solutions team to overcome these challenges was the level of flexibility of both process and product design built into IMS. The information workflow within the system is underpinned by a proprietary workflow system which enables an immense level of customization both for specific markets and products, as well as the intricacies of distribution channels.

A series of custom workflows was created within the IMS engine to cater for each stage of the customer journey – everything from online data capture to underwriting and quoting of premiums had to be integrated into the system. Not only did this mean that each step could be channeled through the platform, but also ensured that all compliance and administration rules could be adhered to.

This heightened flexibility also enabled the Kane Solutions team, working closely with the credit card merchant, to adapt the premium collection process to their specific protocols, thereby ensuring a seamless integration into the IMS platform.