NTUC Income Introduces Lifechain
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), NTUC Income (Income) and MetLife’s LumenLab, have announced an “industry-first collaboration” to simplify life insurance claims for bereaved families.
When a loved one passes on, placing an obituary is one of the first tasks handled by family members, while other tasks like finding out if the deceased has a life insurance policy and filing for a policy claim are put on hold. Since both tasks require “a lot of the same information” about the deceased person, the companies decided to apply blockchain technology to automate the life insurance claim process for grieving families.
Developed by LumenLab, Lifechain enables SPH, one of Asia’s largest media companies, to securely encrypt and share verification data used for obituary placement with Income for the purpose of initiating the claim process. Family members of the deceased who place obituaries in The Straits Times will be informed about Lifechain, and upon their consent, the deceased’s National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) number will be submitted into Lifechain to trigger a search for a matching life insurance policy. When a match is found, SPH will inform family members while Lifechain will send an automatic notification to Income via email to initiate the claims process.
“SPH hopes to expand ‘Lifechain’ to include more insurers in time to come to bring greater convenience to family members attending to the deceased’s administrative matters securely. This initiative is also in line with our push for the digital business, tapping on innovation and growing our partnerships to serve our customers better. SPH aims to be the go-to partner for insurers to reach policyholders’ beneficiaries, as soon as advertisers place an obituary in the future.” – Julian Tan, Chief of Digital Business of SPH.
“At Income, we are constantly looking to enhance customers’ experience with insurance. Through technology and innovations, we aim to influence the way that customers fact-find, enquire, purchase, claims and engage with us. Blockchain technology offers greater transparency, enhanced security, improved traceability, efficiency and speed of transactions. These value propositions resonate with Income and we are excited to be the first insurer to come on-board Lifechain. We believe it will empower us to offer optimal protection of our policyholders’ personal information while enhancing their customer experience with Income.” – Income’s COO Peter Tay.
“By making the customer experience simpler, this SPH – NTUC Income – LumenLab pilot yet again demonstrates the potential of blockchain to shape the future of insurance.” – Zia Zaman, Chief Innovation Officer, MetLife Asia and CEO of LumenLab.
