Qorus, a global association for retail financial institutions today announced the winners of 2024 Qorus Innovation in Insurance Awards during a live ceremony in Lisbon.
The awards, which honor the best ideas and practices transforming the industry for the benefit of insurers and customers, attracted almost 290 entries from 44 countries, with applicants ranging from agile start-ups to the world’s largest financial institutions.
“Since their inception in 2017, the Awards have played a critical role at the center of industry innovation by recognizing and rewarding the best and brightest ideas so others can learn and grow,” said John Berry, Qorus CEO. “The insurance sector is facing ongoing and complex disruption, but despite this, continues to show remarkable resilience. This year’s submissions offer rich inspiration, illustrating how insurers are broadening and diversifying their products and services to tackle disruption head on and exceed customer needs; investing in digital innovations; creating new ecosystems and marketplaces, and championing the sustainability imperative.”
Winners were selected across seven categories through a peer-based voting process combined with a panel of judges from leading global financial firms. The winners of the Qorus Innovation in Insurance Awards 2024 are:
• Discovery (South Africa) – was named Global Innovator 2024 for the firms’ ongoing dedication to innovation, as part of its commitment to becoming a future-ready company, and delivering world-class experiences to its customers, agents and employees. This strategy has led to the launch of several new products and services including a Health App & Ecosystem; Insights Led Service Ecosystem; Discovery Home Loan Protector; Vitality Servicing Automated Outbound Progressive Dialer; Adviser360 Financial Planning and Purple Life Plan, amongst others. Ping An (China) and Chubb (USA) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
• Discovery (South Africa) – received the Connected Ecosystems & Marketplaces award for its Health app & ecosystem. The app integrates advanced health-tech offerings to give its members access to a comprehensive portfolio of physical and mental healthcare services. It also enables members to manage their medical aid plans, locate and communicate with providers, submit claims and track rewards; and offers access to facilities such as virtual consultations, online pharmacies, electronic health records, digital therapeutics and connected medical devices. Chubb (Thailand) and Allianz Partners (UAE) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
• MobiLife (South Africa) – received the Insurtech award for Cover Extender, an insurance product that allows customers to miss premium payments without jeopardizing their cover. This offering temporarily reduces policy benefits in proportion to the premium payments missed over the preceding six months and restores them once outstanding contributions have been paid. It encourages low-income customers, who at times don’t have money to pay for insurance, to retain their policies. SWINZ (Belgium) and Verti (by Mapfre) (Spain) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
• Irish Life (Ireland) – received the Product & Service Innovation award for CARA (Claims AI Reasoning Assistant) that uses AI-driven document-recognition technology to validate and transcribe claims documents and then cloud-based large language models to evaluate applications. Its analysis of correspondence about a member’s illness as well as their treatment history, symptom records, and risk factors ensures claims are processed accurately and promptly. This intelligent medical claims system has significantly improved the company’s processing times, productivity, operating efficiency and customer experience. Irish Life is looking to extend the CARA system to handle other claims and underwriting processes. VidaCaixa (Spain) and MetLife (USA) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
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• Zurich (Spain) – received the Re-imagining the Customer Experience award for its scalable claims-processing solution that uses WhatsApp chatbots to guide clients through the claims journey and deliver an engaging customer experience. It has cut claims handling times from 25 days to less than 24 hours and boosted customer satisfaction by 89%. Zurich plans to adapt the technology that supports the claims processing solution to accommodate voicebots and integrate it with other communications channels. Santa Lucía Insurance (Spain) and Aksigorta (Turkey) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
• Generali (Germany) – received the Social, Sustainable & Responsible award for its Protect Me app that alerts customers to weather hazards. Users can subscribe to receive weather warnings for specific locations or for travel routes. The app provides advice on how to response to severe weather, suggests appropriate insurance cover and guides users when they submit claims. Airtel Africa (Uganda) and Zurich (Brazil) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
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• Ping An (China) – received the Workforce Transformation award for its digital training platform that uses avatars powered by large language models to teach agents how to improve their interactions with customers. An Avatar Coach on the training platform engages with agents in a series of simulated settings tailored to their requirements and encourages them to practice engaging with customers. By allowing them to experience situations from multiple perspectives, the training platform teaches agents how to understand the needs of customers and provide them with suitable products and services. Generali (Italy) and Grupo Ageas (Portugal) were silver and bronze runners-up, respectively.
• In addition, Qorus also introduced an Awards Champion special award this year which was garnered by Bradesco Seguros (Brazil) for their significant contribution and robust participation in the program in 2024. John Berry says, “This is well-deserved recognition when I see the number of innovative projects presented by Bradesco Seguros. I find their willingness to innovate at scale, and to give every employee the means to participate in it truly remarkable!”
Members of Qorus can access the Innovation Radar, a comprehensive presentation of the winners, complete with videos.
And you can already submit your innovative projects for the 2025 edition here
