MLC Life Insurance will leverage an extensive investment in new systems and the formation of a new team to develop life insurance products that meet different life stages, including people living longer.
MLC announced that it had formed a seven-member team that would head up its push into digital services and products recruiting two staff from NAB and one from outside financial services.
The new Bancassurance, Digital and Direct team will be headed by Anand Thomas as Chief Customer Officer and has been created in response to the recent strategic partnership set up between the majority owners of MLC, Nippon Life Insurance Company, and NAB.
Thomas said the creation of the team follows the release of a MLC commissioned report into big data in life insurance that found data and digital systems would create better products and services for consumers.
“We will be be looking at human centric design and exploring and investing in insurance protection for different life stages. This means products that move and adapt with consumers instead of being cancelled and replaced as needs change,” Thomas said.
He said the big data research and new team were the first steps and it was too early to speak about specific products as MLC was undergoing a widespread update to its many of its systems and processes.
“One of the biggest shifts for us is the huge investment in platforms that will go toward creating these products and services. We will be a new life company with new technology as we introduce more than 20 new systems and will benefit from the scale of the investment,” Thomas said.
“We are in an exciting period of growth, and we intend on delivering on this by providing our customers with an experience they have come to expect from their interactions with other innovative, customer focused organisations such as Google, Disney, Apple, and Amazon,” he said.
The new leadership team includes: former NAB staffer Tim Roso as Head of Digital, former Medibank staffer Glen Ryman as General Manager Data, Analytics and CRM, Michael Olivier as General Manager of Sales, Nick Lethbridge as Head of Product, Stephen Rosengren as Head of Channel Development and former NAB staffer Mouli Ganguly as Head of Transformation Bancassurance.
