AIG Life forks out $10m for tech upgrade

AIG Life is starting a $10 million, three-year technology upgrade to provide a completely electronic way for financial advisers to quote and issue its insurance policies, including from mobile devices.

The Aussie life insurance subsidiary will deploy the Axe Group’s Axelerator platform to enable straight through processing (STP) for financial advisers that sell its life insurance products.

Often associated with capital markets, STP is a way of conducting an entire financial transaction process electronically, instead of requiring manual intervention at multiple stages by either the adviser or AIG Life.

In this case, it will provide (among other benefits) the ability for many new life policies to be progressed from quote to policy issue in a single, seamless process, according to Stuart Harrison, managing director of AIG Life.

“This is a significant, long term program for AIG Life, the benefits of which will help advisers provide a seamless new business and underwriting service and improved efficiencies in the ongoing management of client policies,” said Harrison.

Mobility is said to be one of the key benefits of the upgrade. Not only will it result in Australia’s first ‘full’ mobile underwriting solution for life insurance but it will provide two-way synchronisation on mobile devices and web-based systems, the company said in a statement.

It will also provide AIG Life with an ability to ‘quickly provide tailor-made portals for financial advisers and ensure more accurate and rapid processing’, the company said.

“This new technology will make it even easier to do business with us and builds on our incredibly successful eApp, but we won’t stop with STP,” continued Harrison.

“Our intention is to continue to set the pace with adoption of 'Straight Through' technology in policy servicing and claims once we have bedded down the first phase.”

AIG Life claims to receive more than half of its adviser business electronically via the eApp platform.

Piloting of the technology will commence during the first quarter of 2009, with the solution expected to launch in July next year.