Major insurer taps technology to help bottom line, customers

The People's Insurance (Company) Group of China, one of the country's largest insurers, will step up its efforts in technological innovation to improve operation efficiency, the company's top management said on Thursday.

New technologies, including artificial intelligence and internet, will be applied into the transformation of its business mode, it said.

The insurer, for instance, just launched two new claim settlement services for auto insurance based on the intelligent cloud platform and technical tools.

Owners can report the car damage to the company's application or official WeChat account after uploading three photos of the scene.

There is no need to wait for the paper insurance documentation, since the whole process from reporting to receiving the indemnity can be done online, the company said.

And when confronted with accidents, car owners can get a package services after sending the application online, including vehicle maintenance, disabled appraisal and dispute resolution.

The service is open to VIP customers of the company in four regions now, including Beijing and Shanghai.

Bi Xin, general manager of the claim settlement department of the property insurance branch of the company, said the technology mainly utilized tools including digital endoscopes, thermodetectors and cloud diagnosis platform.

If a car gets drowned in water, the circumstances can be detected through those measuring tools and analyzed by big data instead of tearing the engine apart to see, he said.

More than 300 pieces of data were collected on the cloud platform, involving the expenses of pills and surgeries, to give assessment and solution to cases in which humans got injured, he said.

The technology aims to help simplify the settlement process in a more transparent, standardized and intelligent way, he added.

PICC Group's net profit reached about 12.8 billion yuan ($1.95 billion) in the first half of 2017, up 13.4 percent year-on-year, according to the insurer's interim report. The premium income of its property insurance grew 11 percent to about 179.7 billion yuan with 34 percent of market share.