Union Assurance (UAL)

Union Assurance (UAL) is Sri Lanka’s oldest private Life Insurer, offering a range of insurance solutions since 1987. Over the past two years, UAL has earned the status of a trailblazer in digital disruption, fast adapting to an evolving consumer landscape with a new operating model powered by advanced digital capabilities. It was adorned with a powerful new brand identity, a 3000-member strong team spread across 76 branches and a solid capital base, strengthening their customer-centric approach to meet the demands of rapidly progressing relationships, growing ambitions and emerging lifestyles. With a career in financial services over three decades across key Asian markets and global financial institutions, Jude Gomes took over UAL amidst the growing demands of a new age and digital consumers.

Here's our exclusive interview, with Jude Gomes, CEO, UAL to understand how he successfully made Union Assurance set the industry benchmark for ‘Insurtech’ in Sri Lanka, re-positioning the company as a modern, customer-centric, digital life insurer.

A Look Back into the Past

The former president and CEO of Manulife and Manulife China Bank Life Insurance Corporation in the Philippines, Jude Gomes joined UAL when the company was at a crucial juncture in its transformational journey and needed leadership in simplification, innovation and digitization.

Jude is an ardent believer that leaders should constantly challenge themselves and their teams to think differently, simplify solutions, bring in best practices and exceed customer expectations so that they can help customers and simultaneously achieve their dreams and aspirations. Jude revealed, "I have constantly challenged myself and my team to break the orthodoxies of the companies that I have had the opportunity to lead." He believes that most of the significant milestones that shaped his journey are the results of calculated risks and changes that he drove to fruition. Having been a founding member of India’s first private life insurer, India’s first Bancassurance life insurer, and having pioneered the Bancassurance business model in Vietnam, Jude finds himself privileged to be part of the evolution of the regional insurance landscape today.

Jude stated that continued advocacy of digital adoption has also played a significant role in his company's success, especially in strengthening customer-insurer relationships. Life insurance is where both customer and company derive financial value by building long-lasting relationships. Understanding how to utilize digital capabilities to further strengthen the customer experience and employee satisfaction, while also building trust and transparency has enabled UAL to maintain the highest levels of business performance and delivery. He mentioned that customers and employees will always remain front and centre of his strategies, which has also been the winning formula deduced from his years of experience.

Primary Challenges Along the Way

Insurance has trailed other industries and in particular financial services when it comes to transformation – digital or otherwise. Jude states that in an increasingly data-driven society, poor public perception of insurers came down to a combination of factors. The lack of transparency was augmented by archaic complex processes. Low understanding and appreciation of pure protection and risk mitigation, lack of confidence in insurance agents acting as salesmen rather than financial consultants, inadequate focus on training and skill development, restricted channels and limited product suites skewed towards investment rather than protection -- these were all primal challenges we all faced as an industry.

Inspiring Qualities of a Leader

According to Jude, a CEO must have an unrelenting focus on his or her vision, and unwavering willpower to drive it through strategy and timely execution. They should possess clarity of thought and the ability to articulate and communicate the same to all the key stakeholders is critical. CEOs must have the ability to ‘listen’ and be grounded. Understanding the pulse of both internal and external stakeholders is the foundation of good leadership. Jude believes that a leader’s receptiveness to learn from mistakes is equally vital.

Jude states that for a CEO, making decisions with speed, conviction and courage is essential, as is the accountability for the risks and decisions that need to be made. Curiosity, challenging the status quo, and thinking out of the box is crucial for CEOs, especially, to pre-empt challenges and have mitigations in place in the face of unprecedented obstacles and catastrophes. This also applies in proactively adapting to changes, and being the catalyst for change as the CEO. Another attribute that has separated great leaders from good ones has been their empathy for people, and their ability to build and develop relationships with those they lead and serve.

The 'Innovation' Factor

Judy revealed, "A defining feature of an exceptional life insurance provider is the depth of customer-centricity." He explained that insurance products should focus on the people they protect. By rolling out a simplified, customer-focused digital agenda in 2019, Union Assurance mapped out a comprehensive customer journey, addressing pain points, eliminating complexities, and customizing solutions through the application of technology. He mentioned that the newest initiative of UAL provides customers with a 100% end-to-end digital platform to obtain protection for their loved ones with straight-through-processing and thus offering protection from the comfort of their homes, with zero paperwork, and no physical interaction.

Jude thinks that disruptive technologies should be embraced as catalysts necessary for change. At Union Assurance, he had the foresight to strengthen the company’s digital infrastructure and IT capabilities initially to enable 100% digital submissions, and this enabled the company to support 100% of their permanent cadre to work from home during the pandemic. The company has also enhanced their analytics models to predict the next best proposition, improve customer retention and operational efficiencies.

Jude also boasted about how they were able to launch the Union Assurance Virtual Academy and migrate physical classroom training sessions to digital platforms during 2020. They were also able to launch a web-enabled sales force management system - FAME (Financial Advisor Management Explorer) to ensure the performance management of field staff is conducted in a transparent and efficient manner.

UAL further launched Clicklife, a revolutionary end-to-end digital solution - Sri Lanka’s first digital transparently and efficiently life offers custom click lifeless digital experience from policy purchase to issuance and real-time updates on policy information incl Clicklifes, balances, and claims status with a self-servicing app. They have also invested in supportive tech tools such as chatbots and augmented reality experiences to provide consumers with engaging, informative interactions.

The Role of a Leader in the Age of Digitalization

With digitalization, Jude feels that the fundamental role of a leader does not change much. He believes that a leader must be open to constantly explore and onboard new enablers, keep abreast of new ideas, be adaptive, and demonstrate the opportunities that these new changes will offer across the board. Innovation can only happen when a leader creates an environment where employees feel safe and trusted, and unafraid to fail and learn.

Jude started that there are three areas of focus that his business, and the industry, in general, will align to; channel diversification, product innovation, and leveraging off the advances already made in digital adaptation, in general, continue to disrupt the industry through digitization and the simplification of protection to future-proof in France. He believes that Omnichannel is the future of insurance. No industry has not been affected by digitization, and insurance is no exception. To this end, the omnichannel distribution modelNo industry has an insurance industry as it allows for reaching a multiplicity of customer segments through numerous channels such as website, mobile and web applications, over the phone, through social media etc. In many markets, the omnichannel approach has taken strides and is proving to be of value to both customers and the insurance industry.

Word of Advice for Budding Business Leaders

According to Jude, the emerging business leaders should discover and play to their strengths. They should sharpen their intuition because it is not just a company that they will be heading, but also a group of people who need leaders to look up to. They must do the right thing with zero compromises on their values. There are no shortcuts to the top so they should not be afraid to admit to failures, because they cannot know everything. compromises, leverage on the collective capability of their team.

However, Jude also explained that being a leader is a job that many don’t wish to take, and also with it, there is accountability. Things may not always go as planned, but it is important to be passionate about what one do, and the changes one wish to make. It is also important to always show up.

Jude Gomes, CEO of UAL

URL: https://unionassurance.com/