AI can help change traditional insurance: Debasish Panda

Mumbai: The insurance regulator on Friday asked intermediaries to "think out of the box", and highlighted the role that artificial intelligence (AI) can play in changing the traditional product design and help to facilitate seamless services at affordable costs.

Insurance intermediaries can reach customers by increasing investments in data automation and AI, the regulator said.

"These technologies can also help to do more intelligent underwriting and claims processing as telematics and IoT (Internet of Things) devices proliferate," said Debasish Panda, chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). He was speaking at an event organised by the Insurance Brokers Association of India.

Panda said that traditionally, insurance was based on demographic information like age, gender, and occupation, and emerging technologies can be used to analyse alternative data sources, social media profiles on usage patterns, online behavior, among other things.

On whether the market is slowly cutting down on the need for intermediaries, Panda said the answer is "a big no" as technology provides deep insights and analysis but gets the expertise and insight from the broker, which is a critical thing in the evolving marketplace.