Robots ready to serve at insurance company's new store

Taiping Life Insurance Co Ltd has opened an unmanned store in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, another step toward its goal of building a smart information service system to offer policy-holders faster and better services.

The Shanghai-based company has been focusing on the construction of mobile platforms and self-service equipment in recent years and says it aims to transform its traditional outlets and bring more “safe, swift, smart and sociable” services for customers.

It is planning to see the self-help service rate reach more than 50 percent at its outlets over the next one to two years.

In the new store, clients will be served by robots.

Once people step in, they will be grouped into either old or new customers based on facial recognition technology. Their personal information and relevant insurance status will be immediately extracted. 

An insurance automatic teller machine (IATM) at the store will help customers with activities such as taking out an insurance policy, policy preservation and document printing.

The company says the IATM is the first intelligent terminal in the insurance sector equipped with a video customer service. At a touch, staff can be summoned to help clients handle relatively complicated business via a video conversation.

People can play games or experience the company’s senior communities by scanning interactive screens in the Chengdu outlet.

They can also have their physical condition examined on “health experience stations” in the store. An intelligent diagnostic instrument will generate a health report within 10 seconds and the data will be transmitted to the underwriter’s official WeChat account. Policy-holders can refer to all of this for their health management.

Taiping Life is a subsidiary of China Taiping Insurance Holdings Company, a Chinese insurance conglomerate based in Hong Kong.