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“This is the tenth consecutive year Canstar has hosted this award and it’s thrilling to see the boundaries of innovation continue to edge forward each and every time,” said Mitchell Watson, Canstar’s group manager for research and ratings. “The calibre of innovations in the finance industry is very high as providers look to keep pace with the demands of changing generations and continue to disrupt themselves to limit the impact of new entrants. The submissions this year really focus on making consumers’ lives better with product solutions that are disruptive, focused on convenience for the consumer, and make great use of new tech.”
Suncorp was awarded for its online motor-vehicle claims process, which incorporates IBM's Watson artificial intelligence technology “to expedite and streamline the customer service experience, ultimately enabling customers to get their vehicle into a repairer and back on the road faster.”
IBM's Watson AI technology is an advanced service platform that accelerates and simplifies the processing of more than 500,000 motor vehicle claims per year. It enables customers to lodge a claim, receive the outcome, pay any applied excess, and lock in date and time of repair in a matter of minutes, instead of hours, and without having to call the insurer.
ANZ OnePath scooped the innovation excellence award for its Pre-Assessment Wizard (PAW), which helps financial planners “to obtain an indication typically on the spot about the likely cost of life insurances for clients with specific known medical conditions.”
Canstar said PAW, with its preloaded indicative underwriting outcomes for more than 300 commonly encountered medical conditions, “enables financial planners to have more meaningful interactions with clients with on-the-spot responses – better setting client expectations, helping them increase conversion rates, and improve overall client satisfaction.”
Another Canstar awardee, BT Financial Group, was recognised for its use of digital technology, e-Cert, “to refine the process of making an insurance claim, creating faster and more meaningful interactions in the life insurance industry via the application process.”
The e-Cert, developed in partnership with United Healthcare Group, allows for the electronic delivery of patient information between insurer and doctors, and was awarded “for its degree of innovation, particularly in terms of its disruptiveness to the current process available to doctors, claims teams, and customers.”
Two other products that were awarded by Canstar were Suncorp Trustbond and HSBC Australia’s Everyday Global Account.
