FWD Group Holdings Limited (FWD Group or FWD), a pan-Asian life insurance business, has entered into a five-year technology services agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of its cloud-first strategy in Asia.
This partnership will see AWS hosting FWD’s key business applications, including finance and customer interfaces, and insurance agent platforms.
The collaboration is expected to provide FWD with increased agility, scalability, and resilience as it phases out its onsite data centres.
Sandeep Pandey (pictured, right), group chief technology and operations officer at FWD Group, highlighted the strategic role of cloud computing for the company.
“At FWD, cloud computing is a holistic business strategy, not just a priority for the technology function. This digital-first mindset has delivered operational infrastructure and capabilities that are not only secure and cloud-based, but also fully integrated across business functions and with valued partners like AWS. With these foundations in place, we can now further scale our generative artificial intelligence (AI) deployment in an efficient, effective, and responsible way, in line with our vision of changing the way people feel about insurance,” he said.
FWD has significantly increased its cloud adoption, with 97% of its applications moved to the cloud by the end of 2023, up from 27% at the end of 2020. Additionally, 93% of applications identified for decommissioning were retired.
Francessca Vasquez (pictured, left), vice president of professional services and generative artificial intelligence innovation centre at AWS, discussed the company’s long-term support for the financial and insurance sectors.
“AWS has been supporting companies in the financial and insurance industry around the world to better serve their customers with its cloud and AI technologies for more than a decade,” she said. “FWD Group’s ambition of harnessing the power of cloud and generative AI demonstrates their commitment to digital transformation and customer-centricity. We are excited to continue supporting FWD Group with AWS’s proven reliability and capabilities, helping them accelerate innovation, save cost, drive efficiency, and expand their business.”
The partnership with AWS has enabled FWD to develop several initiatives, including Omne by FWD, a digital self-service and claims platform that has garnered positive customer feedback since its 2022 launch.
AWS also assisted FWD in creating a cloud-based central finance hub for managing financial, investment, and actuarial data.
From 2021 to 2023, FWD saw significant growth in cloud-related certifications, such as those from the AWS Skills Guild program, which trained over 600 FWD employees and contractors.
FWD’s digital cloud platform integrates analytics, database management, and AI to enhance development efficiency and security. This platform supports the company’s generative AI initiatives, aimed at improving customer experience and operational efficiency in areas like acquisition, marketing, channel and agent performance, underwriting, claims, and customer service.
Since beginning its AI efforts in 2019, FWD has implemented nearly 200 AI models and over 600 use cases throughout its operations.
In February, the company teamed up with Microsoft to amplify its AI strategy, focusing on the integration of the latest in generative AI technology.
