Sunshine Insurance and AI Innovation
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Sunshine Insurance: accelerating digital transformation through AI
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SUNSHINE INSURANCE GROUP
CDO of P&C and VP of the Technology Center of Intelligence, Dong Li, shares how Sunshine Insurance has maintained its competitive edge through its technology strategy
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unshine Insurance Group is the seventh largest insurance company in China. One of its subsidiaries, Sunshine P&C
Insurance Co., has won a number of awards under the leadership of its Chief Data Officer and the Group’s Vice-President of the Technology Center of Intelligence, Dong Li. In late 2018, the company earned the prestigious 04
award for its ‘claim management through technology’ project, which was granted by Insurance Association of China (IAC). “In that project, AI was implemented to classify ID cards, receipts and other documents required for claim submissions and handling, and to evaluate vehicle damage levels, all through our own Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system and a partner’s image recognition algorithms,” shares Li. Another significant award achieved by the company was the ‘intelligent auto insurance pricing platform,’ which was granted by China Information Association. “In that project, big data predictive models were developed through machine learning (ML) to reduce thousands of customers’ external data dimensions,” he explains. “The models came up with more accurate predictions of auto loss ratios, enabling differentiated pricing
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and avoidance of adverse selection.
latest data technologies, with
I am very proud of leading a group of
a particular focus on the advance-
talented people to achieve milestones
ments of ML, deep learning (DL)
of those projects that have earned
and AI. “We have great ambition
significant awards and industry-wide
to innovate and grow our business
recognition.”
through the use of digital transforma-
Li was originally hired to lead Sunshine P&C Insurance Company’s big data applications, later being assigned to
tions and data technology including Machine Learning and AI,” he says. Li emphasises the need for
lead its IT and digital transformation.
a long-term technology plan, as it
By the beginning of 2019, he was
reduces costs, appeals to a younger
appointed to head efforts in the field
generation, and meets the growing
of big data applications and AI execution
demands of customers in the digital
across all subsidiaries of Sunshine
age. He also reiterates the power of
Insurance Group. As Sunshine P&C
innovation in technology for streamlin-
Chief Data Officer, he is responsible
ing the workloads of employees,
for the testing and deployment of the
something that has been accomw w w.si no s ig . com
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SUNSHINE INSURANCE GROUP
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plished at Sunshine P&C Insurance
According to Li, the app connects
Company through the creation of
to WeChat, easing communication
an app for mobile underwriting. “The
between employees and customers,
app allows employees to study new
and enabling service transactions.
products online, underwrite policies
“For example,” he says, “during the
for new customers, manage existing
process of auto claims, we use WeChat
customers’ needs, monitor and track
as an entry point to record accident
the status of claims as well as send
scenes, take pictures of damaged
greetings on holidays or on customers’
areas on vehicles and vehicle plates,
birthdays,” he says, also pointing out
audio-record descriptions of accidents,
that the app can be used by employees
and listen to guidance messages from
to track the productivity and perfor-
our claim center. The collected data
mance of coworkers in order to
is transferred to our claim center,
motivate through friendly competition.
where claim staff or AI can further
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Dr. Dong Li With an MBA, Dr. Dong Li is a CDO with a scientist’s background, artist’s mindset and collaborative cross-function and crosscontinent senior executive management experience in global companies across the financial services, insurance, retail and manufacturing industry. He is a multidisciplinary leader who excels at empowerment of large teams, strategic management of data technology resources and close partnering with marketing, distribution, sales, risk control and customer service operations as well as external vendors to develop holistic digital transformation solutions (BI, Advanced Analytics and AI applications) for business, and manage committed relationships that drive execution. Dr.Li has the following unique qualifications: Specialised in leading enterprise IT teams, digital transformation and big data or AI applications, with over 10 year’s practice in machine learning, data management and strategic data applications across all business functions to improve revenues and reduce risks. Knowledgeable in auto, financial service, retail and insurance industry with deep experience to manage clients and deliver projects in customer life-cycle management (customer acquisition, insurance pricing, cross-sale or up-sale recommendation, customer services & retention, anti-fraud operations. US/China Fortune-500 companies’ management experience: strategic product planning, financial analysis, analytics consulting, cross-function coordination, database marketing, investment analysis, computer-aided engineering. 10 technical publications in international journals and 10 technical publications in Chinese academic journals.
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SUNSHINE INSURANCE GROUP
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$4.3bn Approximate revenue
2005
Year founded
10,000+
Approximate number of employees 11
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“ Our philosophy is to have a strategic plan and solid execution” — Dong Li, CDO at Sunshine P&C Insurance Co.; VP of Technology Center of Intelligence at Sunshine Insurance Group
process the information for subsequent actions.” In addition to this, Sunshine has an internal team dedicated to the development of image recognition products. “My team researched available open source deep learning algorithms for our own OCR system development, and ended up selecting Faster RCNN and CRNN in TensorFlow framework. Our own OCR product has beaten available products on the market, and has achieved 95-98% recognition accuracy
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in real world business situations.”
the administrative aspect of this role
The streamlining of services
may at times be arduous, as follow-up
particularly extends to the company’s
phone calls often must be timely.
telesales department, particularly
“Because of the content-confined and
when it comes to the overall wellbeing
script-structured nature of the job, this
of employees, says Li. Employees
type of work can be done by artificial
in this department face mounting
intelligence through ASR+TTS+NLP.
pressures from several angles: lack
The applications of AI in these situa-
of training and assistance, low
tions led to one big effort for the teams
productivity and therefore a lower
I am managing at Sunshine Insurance
income. This has resulted in a high
Group. We acquired ASR+TTS
staff turnover, with many resignations
capabilities by partnering with an
coming after three months’ employ-
outside tech vendor, we also partnered
ment, causing the cost to sales ratio
with another NLP vendor to develop
to skyrocket. “If we could use AI to
our first prototype of AI Tutoring Robot
enable offline training or real-time
and AI Sales Assistant, already in
online sales assistance with telesales
production soon.”
reps to improve their sales pitch,
Li also says that the team is honing
before or during their sales sessions,
its own NLP skills by building an internal
it would help improve the success rate
NLP team that can develop a first-gen-
and wellbeing of our employees in
eration robot in customer services and
telesales,” Li says. In addition,
telesales. This will aim to improve the w w w.si no s ig . com
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SUNSHINE INSURANCE GROUP
“ In today’s business world, we need diverse partnerships to complement our strengths in technology innovation”
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— Dong Li, CDO at Sunshine P&C Insurance Co.; VP of Technology Center of Intelligence at Sunshine Insurance Group speed and accuracy of the telesales
components required to build our
services at a lower cost. While
own NLP system from vendors such
Sunshine P&C Insurance is continu-
as Knowology.
ously becoming more self-sufficient
“At Sunshine P&C Insurance Com-
in its AI innovations, there are vendors
pany, our philosophy is to have a
that are key to this transformation:
strategic plan and solid execution.
iSoftStone and Knowology. “In today’s
Our company is culturally rooted in
business world we need diverse
innovation given its history of rapid
partnerships to complement our
growth since its birth. Our top leaders
strengths in technology innovation.
believe in tech transformation leading
In most digital system development,
to future success.” At Sunshine P&C
we either leveraged external technical
Insurance Company, executing change
expertise, or contracted external
is a straightforward process. Should
technical staff from vendors such
any challenges in communicating
as iSoftStone, or we buy technology
change arise, company leaders and
15 executives meet on a shop floor level
service industry, where transactions,
to ensure transparency in how the
services and fraud-detection can
technological transformation will
be managed in real-time and more
benefit the entirety of the company.
precisely. AI will be more widely applied in replacing repeated and
A BRIGHT FUTURE
simple parts of jobs done previously
As Sunshine P&C Insurance Company
by people, in order to improve opera-
moves forward, Li hopes that applica-
tional efficiency and accuracy.�
tions of AI will only grow and notes that the international, cross-industry acceleration of technology is gaining momentum. “I hope that, within the foreseeable future, we will be able to implement next-generation AI algorithms and renovate the whole financial w w w.si no s ig . com
Sunshine Insurance Group Kuntai International Mansion Chao Wai Street Beijing China www.sinosig.com