Vietnam

Hitachi Partners with Bao Viet Insurance to Drive Innovation

Providing a new insurance service that helps to improve health by predicting the risk of developing disease in the future.

Bao Viet Insurance, the largest Non-life insurance company of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Hitachi, Ltd., and Hitachi Asia (Vietnam) Co, Ltd., Hitachi's local subsidiary in Vietnam, have signed an agreement to collaborate and drive innovation in the insurance business. The collaboration will integrate digital technologies like AI and big data analysis into the business to raise health awareness, prevent development and aggravation of diseases in Vietnam.

Under this agreement, Bao Viet Insurance will introduce Hitachi's leading technologies for analyzing medical big data to Bao Viet Direct, an app provided to Bao Viet Insurance policyholders, and will begin providing a new insurance service for improving health, which permits users to easily measure the risk of developing lifestyle-related diseases and receive health guidance. The new service will commence on October 1.

In recent years, the growing prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases has been a problem in Vietnam. This growth reflects changes in people's lifestyles, including diet and exercise, which have resulted from the rapid economic growth and expansion of the middle-income group in the country.

While there is rising demand for high-quality medical services due to increase in income and improvement in living standards, the ideas of prevention and early treatments are not instilled in most Vietnamese. It is said that many people do not start their treatment until they become severely ill. For example, only around 30% of diabetes patients, said to exceed 3.5 million in number, are receiving treatment. Furthermore, the medical insurance market in the country has been expanding rapidly, with concern over spiraling medical costs reflecting a rise in personnel expenses at medical institutions.

Bao Viet Insurance is an operating company of Bao Viet Holdings, the largest financial group in Vietnam, in which the Ministry of Finance holds more than 65% of outstanding shares. With more than one million medical insurance policyholders, Bao Viet Insurance is a leading non-life insurance company in the country. In recent years, the company has been proactive in working on the development of high-value added insurance services that apply new technologies. The partnership with Hitachi is a part of these initiatives.

Continuing its tradition of providing high-value insurance services, Bao Viet Insurance has adopted Hitachi's Risk Simulator for Insurance - a Lumada solution that analyzes medical big data using Hitachi's proprietary AI. The solution can predict the future risk of hospitalization caused by eight major lifestyle-related diseases using medical big data, that includes users' health checkup results and health insurance claims. The Risk Simulator for Insurance has been expanded in Japan since its launch in 2018. For example, it is used for health guidance from local governments in addition to life insurance companies.

The new service enables Bao Viet Insurance policyholders to easily check their future risks of the eight major lifestyle-related diseases simply by entering their health checkup results and past medical history into the mobile app. The app also displays factors for risks and offers advice for improvement. There information can enable specific behavioral changes and lifestyle habits to support health improvement.

The solution will enable further channel expansion and create opportunities at the time of insurance application. For example, the risk prediction service will be linked to the remote medical care services provided by Bao Viet Insurance. In addition, these services will be combined with various health data management functions of Bao Viet Direct app for a customized, centralized and integrated administration of health information that supports wellbeing and productivity management of companies. Bao Viet Insurance and Hitachi will continue to discuss the creation of new health promotion services that utilize various technologies.

Bao Viet Insurance will continue to apply advanced technologies, to contribute to promoting good health among people in Vietnam and offer insurance services which will help policyholders to lead a healthy life.

Hitachi will enhance its services further based on achievements from joint initiatives with Bao Viet Insurance and expand them to Southeast Asian countries and other countries where demand is expected. Hitachi will continue to drive innovation and convenience in the expanding insurance services.