As India aims to deepen insurance penetration and bring wider sections of the population under formal financial protection, life insurers are rethinking distribution, technology adoption and long-term customer engagement. Amid this shift, Edelweiss Life Insurance has positioned itself as a digital-first insurer with a clear focus on customer-centric product design and operational agility.
“From the start, we have been a technology-led company. More than 75 percent of our applications, platforms and data are on the cloud,” said Kayzad Hiramanek, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Edelweiss Life Insurance, in an interview with TechObserver.in.
Hiramanek, who has spent over 25 years across sectors, says that while AI holds promise, the sector is yet to see large-scale transformative applications.
Edited Excerpts:
You have spent more than 25 years across multiple sectors. Was there a defining moment that reshaped your approach to managing teams and meeting their expectations?
I began my career as an executive in the hotel industry and gradually moved up. I have experienced being an individual contributor, managed projects, led teams and eventually taken charge of entire verticals. It has been a long and varied journey.
What I have learnt quite clearly is that, regardless of processes, policies or technology, people are what truly matter. For a leader, it is important to hire individuals who are smarter than oneself, who are self-driven and most importantly, who can make one redundant. Often in leadership, there is a tendency to hold on to information or expertise, which makes one indispensable. That is counterproductive.
What is essential is to democratise information and empowerment. People should be allowed to take decisions, to fail and to learn from those failures. The role of a leader is to guide, to offer insight and direction, but ultimately to enable people to grow through their own experiences.
What influenced your transitions across multiple industries?
When I was in my twenties, I came across a saying that stayed with me: the mind is like a parachute—it needs to be open to function. As long as one remains open, the sector does not really matter. Skills and knowledge can be acquired; what truly matters is one’s attitude.
When I hire, I focus on attitude, the willingness to learn, the ability to work in a team and the confidence to speak one’s mind. In India, the professional culture can be hierarchical. I value individuals who express themselves honestly, because that fosters identity and comfort within a team.
In India, life insurance penetration remains low, especially when compared to global benchmarks. What do you consider the main barriers to adoption?
There are several barriers. First, India is a young country demographically. Young individuals often do not consider their mortality or financial responsibilities seriously until they marry or take on liabilities. That is typically when the relevance of life insurance becomes clear.
Ideally, insurance should begin early, as it provides a longer horizon to accumulate benefits. However, financial literacy is limited. It is not formally taught and many people learn about investing through trial and error rather than structured advice. Even financial advisors often neglect to focus on long-term planning.
I recall my own advisor telling me 25 years ago, “The money you save today is for when you turn 50.” I now see the value of that long-term perspective. Building a corpus requires discipline and time.
Another issue is the complexity of insurance products. They involve long-term financial planning and actuarial science, which many people do not understand. Instead, they focus on short-term returns. Insurance is not just about returns; it is about protection, tax efficiency and future security when earning capacity declines.
To address these challenges, regulatory support has been pivotal. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has introduced several initiatives. Insurers have been assigned states to take ownership of insurance education, and this is now discussed at board level.
Product simplification has also helped. For instance, surrender values are now available from the first year. Earlier, the lack of such features made insurance less attractive.
Innovations such as Bima Sugam, a unified platform for comparing and purchasing policies, and Bima Vahak, which supports women advisors, are improving access. Bima Bharosa has enhanced customer protection by allowing grievances to be handled directly by the regulator. These measures, along with digitisation, have made insurance easier to understand and buy.
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the strength of this ecosystem. Insurers processed claims even while working remotely. Tools such as digital death certificates, telemedical assessments and Aadhaar-enabled underwriting ensured continuity. These advances have significantly increased accessibility and trust.
There is also a renewed government push to bring cooperatives under the insurance umbrella. Do you see this initiative increasing insurance penetration, especially in rural areas?
Group insurance and microfinance are not new. As long as groups meet size and insurable interest criteria, this segment will continue to grow. The government’s efforts, such as the PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, are classic examples. These schemes have brought many people under insurance coverage at very low cost.
The broader push towards cooperative inclusion is a natural extension of these efforts and will certainly help expand reach.
To what extent are current regulatory initiatives supporting the life insurance sector and are there any areas that still need attention?
The regulator has taken a proactive approach with the ambitious goal of “Insurance for All by 2047.” Several initiatives are already making an impact. For instance, the sandbox framework enables insurers to test innovative models safely, while voice-based application forms, improved data practices, and state-level financial literacy efforts are enhancing outreach and operational efficiency.
Reforms have also focused on simplifying products and strengthening policyholder protections. A notable example is the restriction on collecting premiums before underwriting decisions—this enhances transparency and trust.
Forthcoming, the Bima Sugam platform could be a game-changer. By streamlining digital processes, it aims to make customer interactions with insurers more seamless and efficient.
We are seeing the emergence of digital-first insurers—companies that are cloud-native and agile. They remind us of how private banks redefined customer experience two decades ago. How is Edelweiss Life Insurance differentiating itself in terms of customer experience and product innovation?
We launched our company in 2011 as a third-generation life insurer. This gave us the advantage of learning from the experiences of our predecessors. From inception, we positioned ourselves as a technology-led organisation.
Today, over 75 percent of our applications, platforms and data are on the cloud. Many of the terms we now consider buzzwords—cloud, automation, analytics—have been part of our daily vocabulary for years.
Our products are designed around well-researched customer needs. We have a platform called (U Unlimited) U2, which facilitates structured discussions between our salespeople and customers. It helps identify protection gaps, plan long-term investments and determine the most suitable products over time, aligned with the customer’s evolving financial value. Our focus areas are clear: ease of onboarding, enhanced distributor experience and superior customer experience.
Most insurers are stuck in AI pilots – few reach full deployment. What is your assessment of AI for underwriting and risk profiling with production-scale implementations?
Insurance has always been rooted in data science—actuarial science is a prime example of that. We collect extensive data through digital footprints, customer declarations, medical records, financial statements via account aggregators and KYC documentation through Aadhaar.
With this data, we create detailed customer profiles and cohorts. If a new customer matches a known profile, we can reduce the number of questions asked, medical checks required and overall onboarding effort. This makes the process more seamless.
We have been using data, analytics and machine learning for some time. Regarding AI, while it holds promise, we have yet to see large-scale, transformative applications. There are experiments in product development and data analysis, but nothing game-changing yet. We are actively evaluating potential use cases, but are cautious in expecting immediate breakthroughs.
Would you say that conversational AI is likely to play a meaningful role in customer service in the near future?
Yes, that is one of the more practical applications we are already seeing. We have chatbots, WhatsApp-based communication and NLP models in place. These systems are functional and effective, though many still operate on structured responses. As technology matures, I expect these models to become more intuitive, eventually handling more complex interactions with minimal human intervention.
Drawing from your 25 years of experience, what future technologies do you believe will have the most significant impact on the sector over the next five years?
The current trend that holds promise is Agentic AI technology that can replicate or replace human effort in routine tasks. Several large language models are exploring this space. That said, AI still has some distance to go in replicating human emotion or nuanced decision-making. However, with continued exploration and more diverse use cases, I believe its capabilities will expand meaningfully.
