Experts in the world insurance market say that this market will move to a new and innovative stage in the coming years with the introduction and development of digitalization. Companies in our country are already taking certain steps in this direction.

PASHA Insurance is one of the companies that is rapidly transitioning to digitalization in the insurance market. In order to get more familiar with the company's activities in this direction, we present to you the interview with Tural Aliyev, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of PASHA Insurance Company.

Hello, Mr. Tural. First of all, we wish the positive changes in your company to be sustainable and successful.

- We know that PASHA Insurance has experienced a rapid transition to digitalization in recent years. What is the main purpose of this passage? What did you mainly aim for in the process of transition to digitalization?

As a company, we have taken important steps towards digitization in recent years, both in our internal processes and in the services we provide to the client. While establishing our processes, our main goal has always been to maintain the quality of service we provide to our existing customers, as well as to offer modern insurance solutions to our new customers.

When talking about our automated internal processes, I would like to start from the first stage where our company's communication with the customer is created. In this direction, we try our best to communicate with customers in traditional ways as well as in digital ways. For example, if at some stage a customer needs to visit the office or meet our salesperson physically to inquire about products and obtain an insurance certificate, we do our best to fully digitize this process. Considering that life in our modern era is quite fast, we try to help people use their time efficiently by making the process of buying insurance a part of their lifestyle. That is, people should see insurance not as an additional paperwork process and workload, but as a need that will provide them with financial support and is easy to obtain. In this sense, one of our main goals is to make insurance products and services easy and accessible to consumers with the help of information technology.

For example, our customers can directly enter the electronic platform without a sales representative through our online sales portal, and at the same time through our mobile application, buy and evaluate car insurance offers according to their wishes and needs, and also formalize travel insurance completely online.

- What innovations does PASHA Insurance implement for individual and corporate clients?

We consider the convenience of both our individual and corporate customers while developing all our processes. Our digital teams are working to support the improvement of the quality of service offered to our corporate clients. In addition to our future plans that I mentioned earlier, I can mention the Corporate Insurance Portal, which automates the contract signing process and enables the digital signing of corporate insurance contracts for our customers. Our corporate clients can quickly activate their health insurance cards by entering their employees' personal data directly into our system. We will enrich this platform, which is currently used by our customers, with additional functionalities in order to make it an even more effective portal for them.

At the same time, we further expand our digital solutions and have the advantage of specifying information based on the customer's previous history and preparing and sending a proposal form for KASKO insurance without requiring additional documents. If the customer agrees with the offer, he gets his insurance in a fully digital form. Also, the client can perform processes such as extending or renewing insurance certificates with just a few clicks.

Through our digital solutions, we signed an innovation in the local insurance market, leaving the traditional tariff model for voluntary car insurance, and we also started using a mathematical model for the automated calculation of tariffs in the price formation that we use in KASKO policies. This model provides a fully personalized offer for the customer with a data-driven approach and a more streamlined assessment of risks, and insurance premiums are automatically calculated taking into account all risks.

One of the digital solutions created as part of our strategy is our online sales portal. Our customers can now conveniently purchase voluntary property insurance products completely online from this portal. Customers who don't have time to come to the office, who just want to learn about the insurance fee, in short, who want to benefit from the digital convenience of insurance, can easily use the online sales portal.

One of our important projects for the next strategic period is our IT Transformation project, which will contribute to the digital development of our company. Our main goal within this project is to modernize our existing technological architecture and applications so that we can take advantage of technological opportunities more efficiently and flexibly.

In parallel, we are making improvements to the platforms we provide. In order to make the user experience even easier, we plan so that our customers can easily purchase any insurance certificate with the "PASHA Insurance" application available on their phone. Also, we are constantly working on our mobile application and applying innovations so that the client can track the insurance information that is important for him, and if an accident has occurred, he can notify us within a few minutes without any problems.

Recently, the number of users of our application has already exceeded 100,000 people. This means that 100,000 policyholders already know and use digital convenience in the insurance sector as well. Of course, these people have expectations from us. For this reason, we try to learn the future expectations of these users on the platforms we provide, and we make continuous improvements in this regard.

- The innovations you mentioned are mainly related to the stage before obtaining the insurance. But what steps are taken for your policyholders who have already become your customers or are facing an insurance event?

Of course, the main value that insurance companies provide to consumers is compensation for damage in the event of an insurance event. I think that the opportunities created by information technologies and innovations for insurance companies should mainly be applied to the digitization and at the same time facilitation of customer experiences for insurance events.

In this section, I would also like to inform you that according to our new processes, there is no longer a need for an insurance representative to be present at the event registration stage. Through the mobile application of PASHA Insurance, our customers can submit their claims for the insurance event in a fully digital form by taking pictures of the damage and uploading them to the mobile application. Our existing mobile application also enables our medically insured customers to make an appointment with a doctor in a fully digital form.

In the damage assessment phase as well, we aim to complete the assessment process automatically, that is, without human intervention, through artificial intelligence. Once this functionality is available, the damage determination process will be accelerated, which in turn will support increased customer satisfaction. In other words, our insured client will be able to digitally complete the process from event registration to insurance payment.

- Speaking of digital transformation, I would like to ask what do you think we should understand from the title "next generation insurance" that we often hear?

Next generation insurance requires getting to know the customer better and acting according to his wishes. I can say with certainty about one desire of generation Y and future generations that modern young people and the new generation demand everything instantly. Many products and services in the world are now fast and accessible. In our modern era, the Internet allows consumers to choose products or services that suit their wants and needs. It is possible to obtain information on any product from various digital platforms and social media. We should also work in our turn to ensure this flexibility in insurance products. Therefore, as an insurance company, our goal is to provide our consumers with specific solutions according to their needs.

As you can see, in order to provide the customer with a customized product according to their needs, it is necessary to get to know them, collect information, and at the same time do it very flexibly. Sometimes this process needs to be done completely digitally, without a sales representative. For this reason, we aim to strengthen the direction of data management as one of the main directions of our strategy. As a company, we make large investments in this area, whether it is the use of modern technologies and tools in the field of data management, whether it is the improvement of the existing data architecture, or the development of the analytical skills of each person working in our company, and

we are implementing many initiatives in the direction of forming a data-based decision-making culture in the organization.

In general, every digital solution, without exception, requires a data management infrastructure that matches the organization's goals. For this reason, we do daily work to structure, improve the quality of our existing customer data, enrich it with additional data and ensure a structured flow of data in any communication with the customer.

As I mentioned earlier, the next generation is a rapidly growing generation that has embraced digital convenience and prefers to get the services and products they need online. For this reason, the concept we call "next generation insurance" should include all these requirements. We took all this into account when planning our future strategy for 2021-2023.

- Will PASHA Insurance have any innovative initiatives related to its internal processes, as well as for its partners?

According to the 2021-2023 strategic plan, the main goal for PASHA Insurance was digital transformation.

Based on our strategic plan, we started 2021 as a year of preparation for the transition to digitalization. In the first quarter of 2022, we introduced 2 new digital platforms to our customers. In 2023, we implemented certain digital innovations in both our internal and external processes.

As a company, our future goal is to increase digital sales in addition to providing digital solutions according to our strategic plan. Currently, we also collect customer requests through social networks, which are at the center of people's lives, and we actively use this channel as a sales channel.

One of the main initiatives that PASHA Insurance plans for the future is the robotization of processes. The main goal of this project is the automation of daily routine work. Thanks to this initiative, employees of the legal, financial, insurance claims and insurance process support departments will be able to move away from routine work and devote time to higher priority work.

One of our future goals is to build digital ecosystems with our company's partners. We have already taken many steps in this area. We plan to create additional values for our customers through the flow of information within the ecosystem, as well as by automating our processes by integrating the electronic systems of our company with clinics and pharmacies, as well as with auto services.

Our customers can already purchase some of our products through banking mobile applications. Our future goals are to increase our digital partnership with participants in other markets by adding insurance products to mobile and other digital applications outside the insurance market.

We think that digitization will create wide opportunities for both us and our partners, and will open the door to many innovations.

We also have a range of products that provide digital convenience for you. For example, you can insure your card against fraudulent withdrawals or phishing. It is also possible to get insurance against any physical damage to your bank cards with PASHA Insurance.

Overall, our goal as a company is to constantly innovate and stay one step ahead. Differentiation of PASHA Insurance in the changing digital age is very important for us. Becoming a digital company means investing in the development and modernization of insurance.