If the ultimate mission of our industry is to protect families against life’s shocks, then any sales model must be judged by two yard-sticks: consumer security and reach. Indonesia’s traditional agency workflow scores high on the first-wet-ink signatures, face-to-face explanations, multiple underwriting checkpoints-but falls painfully short on the second. In rural Kalimantan or Flores, a single courier run can add ten days to policy issuance; during that delay, the very risk we promise to cover is still riding on luck.
Yet many insurers hesitate to modernise, fearing that “digital” means new OJK capital buffers or cyber obligations their balance-sheets can’t stomach. The good news: we do not need to swing from paper straight to 100 % app-based distribution. A hybrid approach-Agent-Guided Digital Distribution (AGDD)-gives us the best of both worlds:
- Consumer protection stays intact. Customers still sign with a pen, on camera, witnessed by a licensed agent. All disclosures are delivered live, not hidden behind a “scroll to the bottom” check-box. Because the end product remains a paper contract, the sale is still classified as traditional under POJK, avoiding the Chapter IIIA “digital-insurer” licence and its capital add-on.
- Capital efficiency improves. Early pilots show a three-year IRR north of 40 %: turnaround time falls from 10 days to 4, not-in-good-order rates drop by two-thirds, and agents process up to ten times more proposals. In plain language, every rupiah saved on courier delays is a rupiah we can redirect to reserves or new products.
- Penetration leaps in hard-to-reach areas. A farmer in East Nusa Tenggara can fill a smart form on a basic Android phone, pay a refundable deposit via QRIS at the local warung, and sign over video-no branch visit required. The agent remains the trusted guide, but the paperwork no longer shackles their calendar.
Regulators have signalled support for such balanced innovation: comply with POJK 8/2024 for channel approval, keep data on-shore per Kominfo GR 71/2019, and you are free to scale. The alternative-clinging to full paper out of habit-risks leaving millions uninsured and capital under-deployed.
It’s time we stopped framing progress as a tug-of-war between safety and speed. Hybrid models prove we can protect consumers and accelerate growth-all while preserving the prudent capital posture our stakeholders expect. The only mistake now is standing still.
Image by Freepik
