FirstRand banks short-term insurance licence – seeks to become lowest cost company

FNB media statement:

FNB’s parent company FirstRand has been awarded a short-term insurance licence by the Financial Services Board (FSB), three years after acquiring its long-term insurance licence.

The licence will enable FNB to become a complete insurer, with the ability to underwrite short and long-term insurance to businesses and retail customers.

Pedestrians pass street advertising for First National Bank (FNB), a division of FirstRand Bank Ltd., in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photographer: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg

Jacques Celliers, FNB CEO says, “As a fully-fledged insurer, we are now well positioned to sustainably scale our insurance pillar through a philosophy of simplified complexity, great innovation and superior convenience. Central to the success of our insurance business will be our ability to significantly increase efficiency by leveraging the FNB banking infrastructure and channels.”

FNB seeks to gain significant market share in the overall insurance industry through its innovative approach which translates into a massive competitive advantage.

Lee Bromfield, CEO of FNB Life says, “Our long-term strategy is to build the lowest cost insurance company in the market through our ability to interact with customers at a significantly lower cost than competitors and retain them through integration into the FNB ecosystem.”

“Business insurance will play a pivotal role in our strategy. FNB Business has gained significant market share over the past few years on the back of relevant transactional and lending offerings and most importantly, strengthening customer relationships on the back of data driven insights. We want to complete the business offering with insurance and see this working well in existing interactions with our business customers,” adds Bromfield.

Digital technology has become one of the central pillars of the insurance business, with the bank looking to take advantage of a number of innovations, namely:

  • One-click sales processes built through superior rating and pricing models taking advantage of existing FNB expertise and infrastructure as well as leading edge telematics solutions built through the App.
  • Robo-claims processes built with new-age Artificial Intelligence techniques to ensure the fastest and best claims pay-outs in market. Ability for customers to claim, track claims and service policies from any channel of choice including the App.
  • Self-learning ratings models which get more accurate while requiring less information from a customer continuously.

“With millions of active digital channel users, the bank aims to adopt an opti-banking channel strategy to service customers in the most optimal way, while actively learning and using the experience to develop a world class digital insurance experience,” concludes Bromfield.

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