Customers to benefit from healthcare app

Allianz Life Insurance Chief Operating Officer Joos Louwerier

By Kim Jae-won

Allianz Life Insurance Chief Operating Officer (COO) Joos Louwerier believes that good communication with customers is the key to success in the insurance business.

The Dutchman said the company’s new healthcare app AllRight will help the insurer connect to policyholders. AllRight checks up customers’ blood pressure, heartbeat, and exercise regularly through wearable devices, and sends the data to both the policyholders and the insurance company. Allianz plans to cut premiums for customers based on the data.

“The common interest of a life and health insurance company and its customers is health. This is the case because the customer wants to be healthy, and obviously the insurer wants the customer to be healthy as well. We hope that we can connect more to customers with the health app,” said Louwerier in a luncheon meeting with The Korea Times earlier this month.

He said that with AllRight the company wants to support its customers manage, improve and protect their healthy lifestyles.

The COO explained the app with his iPad. He also introduced insurance policies using technology, including a dental insurance product which checks up how many times customers brush their teeth a day through a connected toothbrush.

The businessman said local insurers need to hire international talents if they want to become global players. The nation’s big life insurers, such as Samsung, Kyobo and Hanwha, want to advance into the overseas market, but have experienced difficulties in doing so.

And he said Allianz is a good example of global players interacting Korean talents and products with their international affiliates.

“If, for the development of our Korean talent, we focus on the Korean market only, it is difficult to become a company with global excellence. Allianz can leverage global best practices and expose these to our talents and executives.”

Louwerier said he enjoys eating sashimi at Noryangjin Fish Market in southern Seoul. There is a restaurant which he has visited for more than a decade. The owner has become his friend.

He is a big fan of football and Allianz Life offers local children the chance to learn how to play the sport from instructors at FC Bayern Munich ― the club the company sponsors. Bayern is the leading football club in the Bundesliga, German’s top professional football league. The company also offers a classical music education program in cooperation with renowned pianist Lang Lang.