DirectAsia Insurance Wins Singapore Distribution Experience of the Year - General Insurance For Its Partnership With VICOM

Its cloud-based distribution portal showed immediate growth after launching.

DirectAsia Insurance wanted to access customers who would not conventionally buy from them online. With up to 80% market share on vehicle inspections, the Company partnered VICOM Ltd to provide a one-stop solution for its customers to complete their vehicle inspection and purchase insurance at the same time.

Instead of replacing face-to-face service, this innovation used a digital platform to enhance it, thereby successfully encouraging the purchase of digital insurance by customers who do not traditionally buy from digital insurers.

As such, at the recently concluded Asian Experience Awards, DirectAsia Insurance won the “Singapore Distribution Experience of the Year - General Insurance” trophy for its Motor Insurance Distribution model with VICOM.

The Awards recognise the innovative initiatives of creative companies that deliver meaningful brand experiences to their stakeholders in all the industries in Asia.

During the project’s inception, DirectAsia Insurance partnered VICOM to build a new digital business model — a cloud-based distribution portal that could be used to service customers who were waiting for their vehicle to be inspected. DirectAsia Insurance placed trained sales executives at each VICOM vehicle inspection centre to walk its customers through the digital sales journey and provide them with a one-stop service centre where they could purchase road tax and motor insurance while their vehicles undergo inspection. 

The new model enabled the completion of the insurance sales journey to be less than 20 minutes – the time it takes for a vehicle to be inspected. By doing so, DirectAsia Insurance has successfully added a third business model to its strategy, alongside direct online and its contact centre, to convert offline customers to online.

DirectAsia Insurance worked hand in hand with VICOM, to map out the complete customer journey including pre-inspection, inspection, and post-inspection to ensure that the model was customer-centric.

DirectAsia Insurance aims to meet the customers where they are at all aspects of the journey, including searching for VICOM locations ahead of vehicle inspections and notifying the customers that they can purchase insurance during the vehicle inspection as well provide a complete digital sales option from VICOM’s website.

In December 2020, DirectAsia Insurance surveyed the customers who purchased DirectAsia Insurance policies at VICOM to ensure customers’ objectives were met. Customers shared that they chose to purchase motor insurance as they trusted the advice that they had received through the sales executive and had found the process efficient and convenient. Amongst its key achievements, 66% of customers surveyed bought a DirectAsia Insurance policy without knowing DirectAsia Insurance was at VICOM before they arrived

Watch the interview below to know more about their winning project: