Max Life Insurance introduces ‘Buy Now – Pay at Approval’ feature

Max Life has released ‘Buy Now, Pay at Approval’ feature that allows one to book an insurance policy in advance and pay at the time of issuance, making life insurance purchase simpler and more accessible. Nearly 8 per cent of all applied policies end up in decline or postponement, creasing hassle for the consumer to receive a refund. This new feature aims to efficiently navigate this hassle by letting customers purchase a policy worry-free through a digital payment instrument and away from the hassle of money getting blocked in case of any delay in policy issuance due to underwriting requirements. The ‘Buy Now – Pay at Approval’ feature is applicable to customers paying via a digital instrument for online purchase. In the past few months, the feature was piloted in the online journey, where it was opted by 1 in 2 customers successfully. With the introduction of this feature, Max Life has experienced an uplift in conversion, the contribution of sales from the affluent segment and better customer experience, with a reduction in grievance and refund related issues. In its continuous endeavour to strengthen customer trust, the feature that is available for policies bought online, allows customers to apply for a policy with the proposal form and a payment instruction through a digital payment method (Currently available on credit card payments.) without the actual deduction of money until the proposal is evaluated by the insurer. The actual premium deduction happens just before the policy issuance. The feature ensures that the customer does not need to make any payment at the time of applying for the life insurance policy and the charge to the customer’s credit card happens only at the time of the insurer accepting the risk. Reviewing data for online term sales of Max Life, it has been observed that nearly 8% of all applied policies/cases end up in decline or postponement. Under such circumstances, the amount collected from the customer during the purchase process is to be refunded. Usually, this refund process takes around 8-10 working days and this delay often results in customer anxiety, leading to poor customer and distributor experience. Commenting on the feature, V Viswanand, Deputy Managing Director, Max Life said, “Building trust at the moment of truth is critical in a life insurance purchase process. This feature allows new age, millennial, digitally savvy, affluent customers, to experience life insurance purchase just like they experience booking hotels online with new-age digital travel aggregators. It becomes more relevant for pure protection policies where it is financial and medical underwriting involved leading to higher turnaround time in the policy issuance process. We have seen a phenomenal ~80% growth (YTD August) in protection sales on our e-commerce channel, that has been possible due to our commitment towards building a truly enhanced customer experience and further simplifying policy-buying in the new era.” He added, “At Max Life, we are committed to creating robust and highly memorable customer journeys in the digital value chain and our latest ‘Buy Now – Pay at Approval’ feature is an effort in the same direction. Differentiating our customer onboarding journeys, the feature allows digitally-savvy consumers to avail term insurance at their own convenience.”