Mumbai and Gurgaon, February 20, 2008 :–
Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Ltd., the pioneer of Unit Linked Life
Insurance plans amongst the private life insurers in India, today
announced the appointment of Quest Diagnostics India Private Ltd. as
its exclusive provider of health assessment services in India.
Birla
Sun Life Insurance has entered into a long-term agreement with Quest
Diagnostics India Pvt. Ltd., the wholly-owned subsidiary of Quest
Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX), an international leading provider
of diagnostic testing, information and services, to provide health
assessment services.
Under
terms of the agreement, Quest Diagnostics will be the special provider
of full-service medical screening and diagnostic testing of life
insurance candidates, and related administrative services for Birla Sun
Life’s individual life-insurance underwriting business.
In
the sales of life insurance plans, a very important touch-point is the
customer experience during medical examination. To ensure
standardization and quality experience, Birla Sun Life Insurance has
been evaluating processes which would result in consistent and positive
experience across the country. With this objective in mind, the Quest
Diagnostics partnership has been forged.
Demand
for insurance products in India has grown significantly in recent
years, driven by deregulation of the insurance industry in 2000 and a
growing middle class with the disposable income to buy insurance
policies. It has been predicted that the premium market for India’s
blossoming life insurance sector, now at $40 billion, will more than
double to $80 billion to $100 billion by 2012.
Quest
Diagnostics will provide a range of health management services to Birla
Sun Life Insurance, including laboratory testing through its new 65,000
square-foot diagnostic testing facility in Gurgaon, as well as case
management and appointment scheduling of medical exams by trained and
accredited physicians. Quest Diagnostics will serve Birla Sun Life
Insurance using the company’s proprietary ExamView medical services and
CaseView laboratory-test ordering and reporting software, which is used
by the company's risk assessment business, ExamOne, based in Lenexa,
KS, to serve insurance companies in up to 20 countries.
Presently, the underwriting at Birla Sun Life Insurance is a 3-step
process where the agent primarily liaisons with the Medical Service
Provider. Under the new arrangement with Quest Diagnostics, the agent
would log-in the query at the call-centre to arrange for pre-policy
medical tests. From there, Quest Diagnostics would take over. Hence, a
common inter-face would be present.
Says Mr.Vikram Mehmi, President & CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance,
“Birla Sun Life Insurance has, once again, opened a new chapter in the
history of Life Insurance in India, whereby we envisage setting new
levels of service, new standards in underwriting and improving quality
of underwriting and risks involved. Quality and standardisation of
medical reports and effective handling of underwriting and operations
are the benefits to be reaped by this initiative. Birla Sun Life
Insurance is happy to associate with Quest Diagnostics, who work with
Sun Life Financial in some countries and are an established name
world-wide in providing diagnostic services”.
“Quest Diagnostics, through its ExamOne risk-assessment business in the
U.S., has more than 30 years of experience providing medical screening,
diagnostic testing and other risk assessment services to leading
insurance companies in North America,” said Janak Singh Bajwa, managing director, Quest Diagnostics India Pvt. Ltd..
“Through our agreement with Birla Sun Life Insurance, we bring to India
a level of expertise in health assessment, testing, and related
services that has, until now, been largely absent from the country’s
booming life insurance market. As India’s insurance market continues
its fast paced growth, we look forward to delivering services that will
enable Birla Sun Life to drive quality and cost efficiencies in its
underwriting process.”
Adds Vikram Mehmi, President & CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance, “This
arrangement is significant and important in the journey of Birla Sun
Life Insurance. We are embarking on the phase of the pilot in two
cities. Transition from other centers will happen in a phased manner.
We will use our learnings to enhance our processes so that we have
happy customers. It is also a proud moment for us as we have insured
over 2 million lives.”
|
Sun
Life Financial Inc. is a leading international financial services
organization providing a diverse range of wealth accumulation and
protection products and services to individuals and corporate
customers. Tracing its roots back to 1865, Sun Life Financial and its
partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including
Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the
Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of
March 31st, 2007, the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total
assets under management of US$386.82 billion. Sun Life Financial Inc.
trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock
exchanges under ticker symbol "SLF".
Additional information can be found at www.sunlife.com |
