Traditional Net Promoter Scores based on customer surveys have been overtaken by the real-time insights offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), MLC Life Insurance Chief Claims Officer Andrew Beevors says. 

“NPS is dead,” Mr Beevors told attendees at a webinar hosted by Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) and EXL last week. 

"As an organisation, if you're relying on Net Promoter Score, you're walking with dinosaurs,” he said. “In this day and age, you need real time signals and real time sentiment analysis.”  

He recommends adoption of AI and data analysis technology to "any organisation that is relying on the old net promoter score – which was ask a whole heap of people and they'll tell you what they think months later”. 

“AI can give you real time customer sentiment analysis here and now for you to be able to adjust and pivot your service, and that will fundamentally result in you needing to do things very differently – and reduced complaints, increase customer satisfaction, all those things,” Mr Beevors said. 

At a separate "Demystifying Generative AI in Insurance” webinar hosted by Kanopi and Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday, QBE Ventures Global Head of Emerging Technology Alex Taylor said while AI would “disrupt and transform” the insurance industry, it would not make current operational models obsolete.  

"I don't think that this technology is imploding the insurance business model, I think it's actually going to facilitate the insurance business model, both in operating and at the product level,” Mr Taylor said.  

"If anything, the threat of being replaced is probably not real at the moment. It's not like what the internet did to the media companies or something like that. It's completely different. " 

QBE Ventures has recently invested in geospatial, cyber and AI startups, he says. 

"Primarily, my role is to look at where the insurance industry is heading over the next five to 10 years, and then set up our organisation – and in fact our industry – to participate in that world,” Mr Taylor said.