New Delhi, Dec. 5 -- More than a decade ago, health insurer Niva Bupa began laying the groundwork for a digital-first future. What started in 2011-12 as a modest digital initiative has, over the past two years, transformed into one of the company's strongest growth engines, scaling almost 2-2.5 times faster than the organisation's overall growth, said Nimish Agrawal, Director of the Digital Business Unit, told TechCircle in an interview. Behind this momentum is a combination of behavioural shifts, technological bets, and a strategic pivot to an omnichannel health insurance distribution system in India. Today, Niva Bupa's digital business is the backbone of the firm's ambition to become a more accessible and data-driven insurer in the country. The omnichannel pivot While digital has exploded, the real strategic leap for Niva Bupa has been its full commitment to omnichannel distribution. Consumers today want flexibility. They may research online, seek advice from an agent, finish the purchase on the website, and later interact through WhatsApp or the app. Niva Bupa operates across every major channel: agents, bancassurance, digital partnerships, D2C, NBFCs, third-party distributors, and more. "This strategy proved especially crucial during the transition from Max Bupa to Niva Bupa. While brand transitions often slow companies down, Niva Bupa continued to expand and gain market share, largely because customers encountered the brand seamlessly across platforms and partners," said Agrawal. To be sure, Max Bupa rebranded to Niva Bupa in 2021, after private equity firm True North acquired a stake from Max India. Technology as the bedrock Agrawal describes technology not as a support function but as "the bedrock of everything we do." From sourcing and servicing to claims and customer access, technology powers every major function. The company follows a clear philosophy: Build where it has deep expertise and differentiation, such as claims adjudication logic, servicing workflows, hospital relationships, and customer experience. It depends on third-party tech services provider where products already exist and where continuous R&D is essential.
A prime example is the transformation of its core policy administration system (PAS). Niva Bupa is migrating to Oracle's modern PAS backed by a global R&D engine far larger than any internal team could replicate. "This 'selective build-buy' approach ensures the company focuses its energy where it matters most," said Agrawal. AWS serves as the cloud backbone, and Google is a crucial partner for marketing technology, performance campaigns, and enterprise-grade Gemini capabilities, including V3 and Imagen. For customer intelligence, Niva Bupa relies on Luminis, which provides a unified customer view, while engagement tools such as Infobip, WebEngage, and others strengthen its communication stack. Chatbots across service and acquisition run on Yellow.ai. Leveraging AI Niva Bupa has reached a point where AI is deeply woven into nearly every function from finance and marketing to customer service and sales. The sales team uses an AI tools that guide agents with the right questions during telesales calls, while the digital business unit operates on an AI-driven dialer that predicts call patterns, converts speech to text, analyses sentiment in real time, and suggests the next best action to telecallers. Its built-in Knowledge Hub allows agents to instantly query medical or policy-related doubts in any language and get accurate responses. In claims, the company works with Vitraya Technologies to automate claim adjudication. The system cross-checks claim details with the policy document, evaluating coverage, exclusions, and limits, and can recommend the payable amount within minutes, speeding decisions dramatically. Many such AI interventions are already delivering measurable gains, while others continue to evolve as new use cases emerge. "On the customer side, the homepage uses a conversational bot mainly for triaging, directing users to the right journey. Niva Bupa is now working with technology partners to build agentic AI capabilities that can handle entire processes end-to-end, such as completing a policy purchase or fetching live claim status," said Agrawal. "Niva Bupa is not using AI to cut costs, not yet. The immediate goal is productivity unlocks. The claims AI engine currently works at 73-74% accuracy, and human oversight remains essential. But as the system learns and as trust increases, cost efficiencies will naturally follow. For now, the focus is on speed, precision, and scale," said Agrawal.
AI Lab for governance Niva Bupa has set up an AI Lab, a central governance hub that evaluates and monitors all AI use cases. The company's AI governance framework operates on three core principles. The first is cybersecurity and data protection, ensuring no personally identifiable or health data is fed into models that could train externally. This is reinforced through regular vulnerability checks, strict endpoint security, auto-deletion protocols, and a preference for enterprise licences or in-house solutions for sensitive workloads. The second pillar is maker-checker controls, acknowledging that AI can hallucinate; therefore, all critical outputs, such as vernacular translations, undergo mandatory human verification before being finalised. The third principle centres on business outcomes and KPIs, requiring every AI initiative to demonstrate a clear, measurable impact, whether in productivity gains, accuracy improvements, or reduced turnaround times.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from TechCircle.