New Delhi, Aug. 29 -- For most of us, insurance has always felt like a duty rather than a choice. You fill out long forms, sign pages you don't fully understand, and then wait. If you're lucky, things go smoothly; if not, you get stuck chasing someone for updates. This is hardly the experience people expect from an industry that promises protection at life's most vulnerable moments.

Digitisation helped at first. Policies moved online, call centres were replaced with apps and chatbots, and paperwork was reduced to digital PDFs. But customers quickly realised the underlying issues hadn't gone away. A digital version of a slow process is still a slow process. What's missing is empathy - the sense that the system understands your needs and r...