HDFC ERGO: Building a unique insurance ecosystem superapp for India with BigQuery and Apigee
About HDFC ERGO
HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company Limited was promoted by erstwhile Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (HDFC), India's premier Housing Finance Institution and ERGO International AG, the primary insurance entity of Munich Re Group. Consequent to the implementation of the Scheme of Amalgamation of HDFC with and into HDFC Bank Limited (Bank), one of India's leading private sector bank, the Company has become a subsidiary of the Bank. HDFC ERO is one of India's leading non-life insurance companies in the private sector. A digital-first company, transforming into an AI-first company, HDFC ERGO is a leader in implementing technology to offer customers the best-in-class service experience.
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About Niveus Solutions
Niveus Solutions is a Google Cloud Partner on a people-centric mission to enable Indian innovators from healthcare, finance, entertainment and more, to optimize their digital transformation. In 2020, it was named Asia Pacific Google Cloud Partner of the Year.
Lumiq
Lumiq builds data platforms that help the financial services industry create data products designed to make faster decisions, solve complex problems, and gain better insights.
HDFC ERGO created two pioneering insurance superapps, integrated 300+ services on its insurance ecosystem with Apigee and launched an AI-powered strategy to capture the mindshare of Indian citizens with Google Cloud.
Google Cloud results
- Leads the digital business growth by enabling 4.5 million downloads within six months
- Drives ecosystem vision by integrating 300+ API services through Apigee
- Enables strategy to capture mindshare of Indian citizens with Vertex AI-powered nudges
Created two insurance superapps with BigQuery
Imagine a superapp that recommends doctors, finds the nearest EV charging stations, and connects users with people with similar lifestyle needs, among other services, based on big data analytics of insurance claims.
That's what HDFC ERGO, one of India's largest private sector general insurers, offers millions of Indians through its one-stop shop for health, wellness, automotive, insurance needs and more. The 'Here.' superapp is a centerpiece of the firm's HDFC ERGO 3.0 digital transformation strategy to bring personalized AI-driven services at scale to customers across India.
"Our 3.0 vision goes beyond tech transformation to be about business transformation. Google Cloud truly understood this blue skies priority for us. That's what has made our collaboration so fruitful for charting the AI-driven future of Indian insurance."
—Sriram Naganathan, President and CTO, HDFC ERGOHDFC ERGO has been serving the general insurance needs of millions of Indians since 2002. The company was promoted by erstwhile Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (HDFC), India's premier Housing Finance Institution and ERGO International AG, the primary insurance entity of Munich Re Group. Consequent to the implementation of the Scheme of Amalgamation of HDFC with and into HDFC Bank Limited, one of India's leading private sector banks, the company has become a subsidiary of the bank. Subsequent rounds of mergers and acquisitions created transformational synergies alongside increasingly complex hybrid IT systems in need of one unifying cloud layer.
When HDFC ERGO decided to launch its '3.0' program, it aimed to "move from market share to mindshare." Specifically, the company sought to liberate a wealth of data from combined entities into a powerful value proposition through its unique insurance led ecosystem and consumer-facing superapp, 'Here.'.
The other centerpiece of the firm's digital transformation is the 1Up superapp for insurance advisors, enabling AI services to manage policies, create quotes, simplify renewals, and improve performance. Together, the two superapps powered by Google Cloud position HDFC ERGO at the forefront of AI-powered insurance sourcing and servicing journeys in India.
"Our 3.0 vision goes beyond tech transformation to be about business transformation," says Sriram Naganathan, President and CTO, HDFC ERGO. "Google Cloud truly understood this blue sky priority for us. That's what has made our collaboration so fruitful for charting the AI-driven future of Indian insurance."
A transformative cloud journey working with creative partners
To realize its 3.0 initiative, HDFC ERGO embarked upon a comprehensive cloud migration to a cloud-native, data-driven ecosystem on Google Cloud with the support of Niveus Solutions and Lumiq to architect the transformation. The goal was to move a 20-year-old IT infrastructure to the cloud, while integrating structured and unstructured data in BigQuery.
"Working with partners Niveus Solutions and Lumiq became a meeting of creative minds that empowered us to become the first insurance player in India to adopt Google Cloud across the spectrum of modern application building."
—Anubhab Goel, Head, Digital Innovation, HDFC ERGOLumiq enabled HDFC ERGO to build its entire 3.0 program around BigQuery as an autoscaling data lake, unifying priceless data spread across disparate silos and legacy systems. The goal was then to deploy BigQuery as a powerful data warehouse for machine learning (ML) driven analytics of hundreds of millions of data points that would power the two superapps. In a nutshell, the adoption of BigQuery amounted to "a creative leap from DevOps to MLOps," says Anubhab Goel, Head, Digital Innovation, HDFC ERGO.
While Niveus Solutions drove the Google Cloud migration and the building of the 1Up app, HDFC ERGO also worked with Lumiq for data modernization, to build the two apps at the heart of its digital vision. The results have been transformative. The 'Here.' app has won numerous awards, and vastly increased customer engagement, with over 4.5 million downloads within six months of launch.
"With BigQuery at the center of our 3.0 vision, we're expanding mindshare across the huge Indian insurance market," says Anubhab. "Working with partners Niveus Solutions and Lumiq became a meeting of creative minds that empowered us to become the first insurance player in India to adopt Google Cloud across the spectrum of modern application building."
Integrating superapp ecosystem partners with Apigee
To realize their potential, the superapps must communicate with many backend systems, dozens of partners, from charging stations to garages, hospitals to pharmacies, and retailers selling HDFC ERGO policies, marshaling data in different computing systems.
"In six months of our Apigee journey, we have 300 services integrated in our ecosystem through Apigee, and that's the tip of the iceberg. There's unlimited potential for creative growth on our superapps thanks to the auto-scaling API management power of Apigee, and we're seeing this unfold before our eyes."
—Sriram Naganathan, President and CTO, HDFC ERGOIt's a complex operation that is enabled by Apigee as a fully-managed API management tool that facilitates seamless integration within the insurance partner ecosystem, with world-class scale, security, and performance.
"We have a fast-growing ecosystem across India with our superapps that enable us to serve all user needs beyond insurance," says Sriram. "Apigee is the glue that brings our partners together seamlessly, whatever computing infrastructure they live on, from on-premise to multi-cloud."
Sriram says that with Apigee connecting ecosystem relationships, HDFC ERGO is quickly gaining the ability to drive embedded customer journeys through its 'Here.' app. He adds that Apigee's utility goes beyond the superapp experience to enable many aspects of HDFC ERGO's business, facilitating back-end middleware applications for streamlined operational efficiencies.
One of the most exciting aspects of HDFC ERGO's Apigee deployment, says Sriram, is that it's a "work-in-progress" with an open-ended evolution whose true power is to be felt in months and years to come.
"In six months of our Apigee journey, we have 300 services integrated in our ecosystem through Apigee, and that's the tip of the iceberg," says Sriram. "There's unlimited potential for creative growth on our superapps thanks to the auto-scaling API management power of Apigee, and we're seeing this unfold before our eyes."
Demystifying India's insurance space with Vertex AI
From southern Tamil Nadu to the northern reaches of Kashmir, HDFC ERGO is spreading its mission of empowerment through its ecosystem vision. Fast expanding from urban centers of India, such as Mumbai and Delhi to Tier 3 and 4 cities and rural hinterlands, the insurer seeks to drive an intuitive user journey through powerful AI solutions.
To this end, HDFC ERGO is deploying Vertex AI and Google's generative AI engine in multiple ways. On the 1Up app, the insurer leverages Vertex AI to give insurance agents context-sensitive "nudges" through different scenarios to facilitate the customer onboarding experience. The insurer meanwhile runs advanced data insight from BigQuery through Vertex AI to drive highly personalized offerings for consumers in specific geographical locations.
One of the core AI missions of HDFC ERGO is demystifying the sometimes hard-to-understand language of insurance, using a combination of Vertex AI and Natural Language AI. The firm is currently developing a voice-and-text chatbot for its 'Here.' superapp designed to break down complex insurance concepts for consumers in remote areas, so they can enjoy an intuitive user experience, while understanding exactly what they are buying.
The fact that Natural Language AI supports 11 Indian languages means that HDFC ERGO can reach people in rural regions in their own mother tongue and carry out voice-based policy transactions whenever necessary.
"By demystifying insurance for millions of people across India, through the power of Google Cloud AI tools such as Vertex AI and Natural Language AI, as well as for generative AI, we're able to bring value to people who previously were uninsured," says Sriram. "With Google Cloud, we're playing a role in bringing Indians in less developed regions into the digital revolution."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About HDFC ERGO
HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company Limited was promoted by erstwhile Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (HDFC), India's premier Housing Finance Institution and ERGO International AG, the primary insurance entity of Munich Re Group. Consequent to the implementation of the Scheme of Amalgamation of HDFC with and into HDFC Bank Limited (Bank), one of India's leading private sector bank, the Company has become a subsidiary of the Bank. HDFC ERO is one of India's leading non-life insurance companies in the private sector. A digital-first company, transforming into an AI-first company, HDFC ERGO is a leader in implementing technology to offer customers the best-in-class service experience.
About Niveus Solutions
Niveus Solutions is a Google Cloud Partner on a people-centric mission to enable Indian innovators from healthcare, finance, entertainment and more, to optimize their digital transformation. In 2020, it was named Asia Pacific Google Cloud Partner of the Year.
Lumiq
Lumiq builds data platforms that help the financial services industry create data products designed to make faster decisions, solve complex problems, and gain better insights.