The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said it would consider allowing online-only sales of insurance policies even after the COVID-19 pandemic ends, if the Internet tools used by life insurers prove effective and pose little risk.
The commission in May allowed several life insurers to sell their products via online tools, such as videoconferencing, as a temporary measure to help them maintain their operations amid a local COVID-19 outbreak, Insurance Bureau Deputy Director-General Chang Yu-hui (張玉輝) said.
“We will see how well the insurers have utilized the digital tools to sell their products and whether they have difficulty authenticating clients’ identities to determine if we should approve the use of such tools after the pandemic slows,” Chang said.
That would be a major change for the sector, as the commission has long required insurance agents to meet clients in person during sales pitches and witness clients signing the documents in person, except for several types of policies with lower risks that can be sold online, such as travel insurance.
It is not clear whether the commission would initially allow insurers to sell every kind of policy online, Chan said.
Given that most life insurers used videoconferencing to interact with clients and confirm their identities, the commission would consider creating a new regulation governing the use of such tools, instead of amending regulations, Chang said.
As the most challenging part of selling policies online is confirming a client’s identity to prevent fraud, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) has asked its clients to say their names as well as the policy’s content out loud in front of a camera and then sign the documents, executive vice president Lin Chao-ting (林昭廷) told a news conference yesterday.
“It does not sound cutting-edge, but this way the identification process is straightforward and clients have a better experience,” Lin said.
Cathay Life has sold 45,000 insurance policies via videoconferencing, gaining a market share of 75 percent, Lin said.
More than 90 percent of its agents and clients were satisfied with Cathay Life’s virtual tool and they continued using the digital channel even though local infections had fallen over the past week, Lin said.
Last week, 39.6 percent of all of Cathay Life’s policies were sold via videoconferencing, compared with 18.6 percent in the middle of May, when Cathay Life had just launched the tool, he said.
“Consumers have become accustomed to the new service, and our agents are also happy, as they can spend less time commuting between clients. It seems that sales via videoconferencing will become the norm in the future,” Lin said.
Twenty-six percent of the deals were made between clients and sales agents residing in different counties, he said.
However, that videoconferencing is convenient does not mean that sales agents no longer need to visit their clients, as maintaining good connections with customers still matter, he added.
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