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About
AIB strategically disrupted the life insurance market, forming a groundbreaking alliance with GWL to build AIB life, a standalone insurer built exclusively for AIB customers. AIB life integrates with AIB, offering an unparalleled embedded experience.
Innovation presentation
In 2021, AIB made the strategic decision to disrupt the traditional life insurance market. Instead of conventional outsourced partnerships, AIB chose a groundbreaking joint venture with Great-West Lifeco (GWL), creating AIB life a standalone Life Insurer built from the ground up.
The strategic alliance combined AIB’s extensive customer base (3.2million customers) with GWL’s global life insurance expertise. AIB life was purpose-built to operate independently, with its own distinctive product suite and regulatory permissions. What makes AIB life so unique in the Irish, UK and European Market is that it has been built to serve only one customer, AIB and all decisions from architecture through to customer engagement are built to seamlessly integrate with AIB and serve AIB customers an embedded experience;
Innovative Vision and Strategy: At the heart of AIB life's innovation lies its unwavering commitment to a customer-centric approach and digital transformation. By fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, AIB life mobilised its ambition to build a greenfield insurance organisation capable of redefining the customer and advisor journey. Leveraging strategic partnerships with leading insurtech firms such as TCS BaNCS, EValue EVDigital, and Swiss Re, AIB life gained access to cutting-edge technologies and expertise, enabling the creation of a future-proofed, scalable, and integrated enterprise design. (More information on our partner strategy can be found in Appendix 1)
Innovative Technology Solutions: AIB life's innovation extends to its revolutionary use of technology to address key pain points in the life and pensions journey. Typically advice firms find ourselves enmeshed in laboriously repetitive and manual activity with customers having to wait to be undercover. Through innovative underwriting solutions powered by fintech platforms, AIB life achieved a 90% straight-through processing rate, significantly reducing interaction time and expediting decision outcomes. Moreover, by seamlessly integrating customer data, through single sign on from AIB, into the advisor platform, AIB life streamlined sales processes, enabling advisors to focus on delivering tailored solutions rather than navigating complex systems.
Innovative Customer Experience:
At AIB life, we're committed to being digital-first, yet human when it matters. Our future-proofed customer proposition is seamlessly embedded within the AIB Mobile Banking app, offering customers unparalleled convenience and accessibility. With shared data from AIB's CRM systems, our straight-through processing ensures swift and efficient service delivery, while our digital toolkit empowers customers with personalised advice and policy documentation—all within the AIB Mobile Banking app.
Data-Driven Business and Security: Driven by a data-driven business strategy, AIB life implemented state-of-the-art analytics architecture to eliminate data silos and enhance customer experience. By leveraging leading solutions such as Snowflake and Atlan, AIB life empowered advisors with holistic financial planning tools and realistic forecasting capabilities, ensuring consistency of advice across all channels. Moreover, AIB life prioritised security and resilience, implementing robust security measures and leveraging managed service providers to safeguard the ecosystem against emerging threats.
Results and Impact: The culmination of AIB life's innovative endeavors is a rich, user-friendly experience for both advisors and customers. Through dynamic fact-finding and automated advice processes, AIB life has revolutionised financial planning, empowering advisors to deliver tailored solutions with ease and efficiency. As a result, advisors and clients alike benefit from robust retirement strategies, consistent advice, and realistic forecasting—all seamlessly integrated into the AIB Mobile Banking app, enhancing accessibility and convenience for all stakeholders.
With a clear vision to deliver a 300% market share increase within five years, we're already experiencing exponential growth and positive customer engagement. From 30,000 consultations annually, our innovative model will enable us to engage 500,000 customers in financial wellbeing within five years.
AIB life stands as a beacon of innovation in the Life Insurance landscape, setting new benchmarks for customer-centricity, digital transformation, and technological excellence. Through strategic vision, collaborative partnerships, and a relentless commitment to innovation, AIB life has not only reimagined the life and pensions journey but paved the way for a future in which we can cater to our evolving customer needs.
Clear validation for the innovation of our proposition and our operating model has been the recognition received by the industry. In just 12 months since launch we’ve won the 2024 Celent Model Insurer Award for Digital and Emerging Technologies and the 2023 National Project Awards celebrating innovation in project management awarded AIB life Private Sector Project of the Year.
Uniqueness of the project
Where the conventional route might have dictated a simpler path through outsourced partnerships and off the shelf products, we chose to defy expectations. Instead, we boldly chartered a course towards innovation by building a new life insurance entity from scratch. Through agility and determination, AIB life emerged as a greenfield organisation within an unprecedented 21-month timeframe. This encompassed the setup of a new company, the nomination of a new Board of Directors, and the appointment of a new Executive Management team. Despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic, our dedicated team, operating remotely across the globe, navigated regulatory complexities and received crucial approvals from the Central Bank of Ireland, the Pensions Authority, and Revenue, all within the same accelerated period.
What makes AIB life so unique in the Irish, UK and European Market is that it has been built to serve only one customer, AIB and all decisions from architecture through to customer engagement are built to seamlessly integrate with AIB and serve AIB customers an embedded experience.
Digital-Led Platforms for a Seamless Customer Experience: At the heart of AIB life's mission lies a commitment to delivering a best-in-class company with cloud-based, digital-led platforms. Our focus is on providing a seamless omnichannel customer experience, addressing the modern consumer's evolving needs and expectations. Through our strategic partnership with AIB, our sole distributor and co-owner, we aim to offer life insurance products across Protection, Savings & Investments, and Pre- and Post-retirement options, reaching customers through both physical and digital distribution channels.
Addressing Critical Market Gaps: Our journey began with a clear understanding of the critical gaps in the Irish market, where a significant portion of the population lacked essential financial protection and investment coverage. Traditional models, heavily reliant on face-to-face interactions and broker channels, presented accessibility and scalability challenges. AIB's previous distributor model was reevaluated, leading to the establishment of AIB life to address these shortcomings and unlock the potential of the existing customer base.
Innovative Solution and Approach: AIB life deployed a bespoke Delivery Model tailored to the ambitious go-live timeframe, involving over 300 staff across 12 Workstreams spanning all company functions. Central to our approach was our NorthStar vision, ensuring that customers remained central to every business decision. Leveraging modern technology and digital tools, we implemented a partner strategy with 30+ vendor cloud-based platforms and 50+ core system integrations, underpinned by robust operating model processes and a dedicated team committed to excellence.
Lean Operating Model: Crucially, post launch we’ve right sized our organisation in the line with the operating model vision we set out to achieve. Our lean operating model has proven its efficacy, allowing us to operate a fully regulated life insurance company with remarkable efficiency, boasting a staff complement of fewer than 100 individuals a cost model significantly below other market participants. This lean yet agile structure underscores our commitment to maximising value for our customers and shareholders alike.
In conclusion, AIB life's journey from inception to implementation stands as a testament to our unwavering commitment to innovation, agility, and customer-centricity. Through strategic vision, collaborative partnerships, and a relentless pursuit of excellence, we have not only transformed the life insurance landscape but laid the foundation for a future where financial security and accessibility of ‘advice’ is within reach for all.
