The head of the Central Insurance company of Iran (CII) reiterated the need for promoting insurtech services saying that fostering innovation is paramount for moving the industry forward.
"Insurtech can and will transform the key [insurance] sector…Policyholders will benefit from advanced insurtech companies. Innovators obviously need indepth knowledge of the insurance market to be able to offer solutions that serves all the players," Majid Behzadpour told the annual Insurance and Development Conference in Tehran.
The regulatory body seeks to institutionalize innovation in insurance companies and ensure that insurers are indeed responsive to technological progress.
Hundreds of startups and knowledge-based companies have opened in Iran some offering insurance services. They account for almost 96% of the total online sales and are seen as knowledge enterprises by the government with an estimated 5-trillion-rial investment.
Behzadpour noted that the CII is currently working on 20 projects, mostly related to digitalization and smartification.
Some projects are finalized, he said, "including the rulebook for implementation of smart supervision, reforming corporate governance rules, online loss payment platform, an innovation center and developing takaful rules."
The CII is also in the process of setting up a special data center for the medical records of policyholders. "The center will connect subsectors of the health and medical industry and ease information sharing between insurers and medical centers."
An electronic prescription platform for physicians is to be unveiled by March, he added.
The increasing number of fraudulent medical claims has become a challenge for insurers and experts say electronic prescriptions plus data sharing platform can address the problem. They say fraudulent cases account for 15% of the total claims.
Electronic prescription is the computer-based electronic generation, transmission, and filling of a medical prescription replacing paper/faxed prescriptions.
E-prescription allows a physician, a doctor’s assistant, pharmacist, or nurse to use digital prescription software to electronically transmit a prescription or send a mail order to the pharmacy.
The CII boss elaborated on the current state of medical insurance services saying that almost 17.2 million Iranians have complementary medical insurance.
As per CII data, insurance companies generated 310.3 trillion rials ($885 million) from medical insurance policies during the first seven months of the current fiscal year (started late March 2022).
Medical insurance accounted for 32.06% of the collective portfolio in seven months over and above third-party auto insurance with 29.12%.
During the period companies sold 896,000 medical insurance policies, 61.16% higher on the corresponding period last year, and 176.6 trillion rials ($503.8 million) was paid in claims in the medical insurance segment -- 68% higher on the previous year.
Total medical insurance claims grew by 40% to 39.1 million cases. A large part of the money was paid to cover bills related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
