IndiaFirst Life issues insurance policies 58% faster

Disconnected systems and manual processes limited growth

A few years ago, IndiaFirst Life set out to build operational scale. Having already established itself as a customer-first company, the insurer wanted to do more by expanding its distribution networks, speeding up product launches, and improving operational efficiency. 

The company was also keen to offer seamless and easy customer onboarding, policy servicing, and claims journeys across digital and assisted channels. 

That called for an enterprise-wide digital transformation, not just incremental IT upgrades. To enable this transformation, IndiaFirst Life needed a platform-first, low-code/ no-code approach that would modernise core insurance and sales processes. 

Up until then, policy lifecycles were managed on separate, disconnected systems which limited operational visibility, while also duplicating data. Key processes such as underwriting decisioning, and claims approvals were manually executed, resulting in longer turnarounds. 

“We wanted to move from fragmented systems to a unified, intelligent platform that would connect customers, distributors, and operations from end to end,” says Sarabjeet Singh, Head of Digital Transformation, IndiaFirst Life. “Salesforce offered us that central orchestration layer, bringing together sales, operations, servicing, and feedback management in one ecosystem.”

A unified CRM and BPM platform with robust integrations creates consistent customer experiences 

With Salesforce, IndiaFirst Life has connected front-end sales and distribution processes with back-end business process management (BPM) functions such as new business, underwriting, servicing, and claims management – all on one platform. 

Customer journeys now feel seamless and consistent across touchpoints, while back-end operations are scalable, auditable, and future-ready.

All customer data is consolidated in a single source of truth – right from initial interactions, to policy issuance, servicing, and claims. So, teams have all the insights needed at their fingertips to personalise customer experiences. 

Salesforce also acts as a configurable orchestration layer that sits above core policy systems. This allows teams to modify journeys and workflows without large-scale core changes. In fact, new products are now launched in weeks, not months because teams can quickly configure rules, application forms, and approval workflows on Salesforce.

Through 110+ APIs on Agentforce MuleSoft, IndiaFirst Life has integrated Salesforce with 50+ internal and external systems to simplify the flow of information and documents from sales to BPM teams and vice versa. This accelerates processes like customer onboarding and servicing.

“With MuleSoft, we’ve built integrations that are so non-intrusive that front-line productivity isn’t disrupted,” says Singh. “Sales and service teams can continue to operate at speed, while data is smoothly synchronised across systems in real time.” 

Since MuleSoft comes with built-in connectors, integrations are easier. Plus, the APIs are highly reusable, reducing development costs and effort. 

Streamlined sales and automated underwriting reduce the time taken to issue policies by 58%

Across frontline sales and service functions, IndiaFirst Life uses Agentforce 360 for Financial Services to strengthen engagement with customers and distributors. 

An intuitive app called UNIFY – built on the platform – makes it easy for field sales teams and distributors to manage leads, proposals, quotes, onboarding, payments, sales activities, applications, updates, and documents. 

“No longer do our sales team have to grapple with multiple different sales tools,” says Singh. “Instead, with one simple sales app, they can access everything needed to sell smarter.”

All data captured on UNIFY automatically flows to BPM functions like underwriting. In parallel, the new business team uses Salesforce to capture new insurance applications which are then sent to back-end teams for scrutiny, verification, and underwriting. 

Business rules written into Salesforce ensure that underwriting is both quick and compliant. Data on the customer’s medical health, annual income, PAN, credit score, and insurance policies are automatically integrated from external databases in real time via MuleSoft. If underwriters need additional information from the customer, their requests reach the sales team in an instant, compared to two hours earlier.  

IndiaFirst has also built automated routing workflows, maker-checker controls, and approval hierarchies to improve underwriting efficiency.As a result, M0 conversions, i.e., the percentage of cases where an insurance decision is made within 1 month of application submission, have increased by 15%.

We transformed visibility and decision-making by providing real-time access to critical metrics such as CFR and application status, eliminating the previous two-hour reporting lag. This enabled sales to monitor operations proactively and take immediate corrective actions when required.

Automation and rule-based decisioning further strengthened straight-through processing capabilities, delivering a 10% increase in STP rates, and reducing manual intervention across key workflows.

“With the ability to process underwriting and new business workflows in parallel, our productivity has greatly improved,” says Singh. “The turnaround time from insurance application to issuance has reduced by 50%.”

Service automation reduces call volumes by 92%

Once a policy is issued, any customers that have a query, complaint, or policy servicing request can easily reach out to IndiaFirst Life via the website, email, call centre, chatbots, or branch. Data from all these channels is captured on Salesforce, enabling service teams to deliver seamless omnichannel support.

The customer data that flows into Salesforce from sales and backend operations equips service reps to access policy details, previous customer interactions, and other contextual information needed to resolve queries faster. 

Each service ticket is automatically assigned to the respective teams, processed, and closed within pre-defined timelines. If SLAs are in danger of being breached, automated reminders are instantly sent to the respective teams, followed by a systematic escalations process. As a result, no service issues go unresolved. 

“With Salesforce, customers enjoy a frictionless service experience,” says Singh. “In fact, our customer satisfaction scores have gone up. And with service automation, call volumes handled by our service reps have reduced by 15%.”

Insurance claims are also processed at scale on Salesforce. The platform streamlines the entire process of capturing a claim, collecting documents, analysing the case, verifying the details, and finally accepting or rejecting the claim. 

Once a claim or service request is closed, customer feedback is captured on Salesforce in various regional languages. This feedback then flows into dashboards and processes to help teams continuously improve customer experiences.

Agentic AI will embed greater speed and intelligence into insurance operations

Having transformed and modernised its operations, IndiaFirst Life is now set to become an agentic enterprise. But first, it needs a strong data foundation. With Data 360, the insurer is building a golden record for unstructured and structured data, analytics, and insights. 

Clean operational data will flow from the Salesforce platform and IndiaFirst Life’s Data Lake into analytics systems and reports, via Data 360. This will give business leaders a unified view of service SLAs, escalations, and resolutions, as well as metrics on customer experience, value realisation, and operational productivity. Decisions will no longer be based on intuition or guess-work, but on real-time insights.  

Since Data 360 uses zero copy technology, users can access data without physically moving, reformatting, or copying the information, helping preserve data security.

Data 360 will also underpin IndiaFirst Life’s implementation of Agentforce – the agentic layer of the Salesforce platform. Using Data 360, AI agents will effectively engage with customers and employees across the policy lifecycle. 

For example, in underwriting and new business operations, agentic AI will intelligently triage cases, and summarise case history. So, teams can focus more on high-value judgement tasks. 

Similarly, in customer service and claims management, agentic AI will empower teams with instant customer context and policy summaries to deliver better experiences. The AI will also analyse customer feedback and service interactions to identify experience gaps.

The intent is to reduce cognitive load, help teams work better, and minimise TATs. 

“We want agentic AI to augment our teams, not replace human judgement which is so important in an industry as regulated as ours,” says Singh. “We see Agentforce as the next layer on top of our processes, helping us evolve from automation to intelligent orchestration.”

Salesforce partners and the Signature Success team simplified implementation

The Salesforce service module was implemented in just three months, making it one of the fastest Salesforce deployments in the insurance industry. Supporting the process were two Salesforce implementation partners – Orbit Innovations and PwC.

“Orbit Innovations did a great job in helping us roll out Salesforce fast and at scale across our CRM, BPM, new business, claims, and feedback functions,” says Singh. “PwC also helped us build various processes to simplify the customer onboarding journey, and get it first-time-right on our UNIFY app.”

In parallel, the Salesforce Signature Success team provided practical inputs to minimise Salesforce maintenance and custom code. Since the go-live, the team has delivered continuous optimisation support. They built structured value-realisation frameworks tied to KPIs across UNIFY, underwriting, servicing, claims, and feedback – so, IndiaFirst Life can easily measure and sustain its transformation outcomes. 

Next: Deepen user adoption, scale up customer engagement 

IndiaFirst Life plans to extend Salesforce to streamline sales hierarchy management and distributor onboarding even further. Group customers and corporate relationships will also be managed on the platform. 

Another key next step is to expand Salesforce-integrated conversational interfaces (e.g., chatbots, WhatsApp), while also automating marketing campaigns. 

Across all these initiatives, IndiaFirst Life’s philosophy is clear: implement ‘digital’ where it matters, and ‘assisted’ where it adds value – with a sharp focus on trust, transparency, and compliance. 

Serving over 16 million customers demands a unified and scalable platform that can be easily integrated with other systems. Salesforce ticks all these boxes. With it, IndiaFirst Life has built a comprehensive and robust digital ecosystem connecting sales with underwriting, servicing, claims processing, and feedback management. 

Across this ecosystem, information flows seamlessly, while processes are standardised and automated. This empowers IndiaFirst Life to reduce friction at every customer touchpoint. Teams are able to deliver quick, personalised, and trusted service across channels. 

Salesforce also provides a future-ready digital foundation that IndiaFirst Life can use to grow distribution without increasing operational costs. Customer experiences can be continually improved based on real-time feedback. 

Moreover, Salesforce’s low code and configurable architecture enables IndiaFirst Life to respond quicker to regulatory and business changes, add new capabilities incrementally, and future-proof its investments. 

“At IndiaFirst Life, Salesforce isn’t viewed as just another technology,” says Singh. “It’s a core business platform that underpins our long term vision to remain agile, innovation-led, and scalable in a fast evolving insurance market.”