“In the autumn of 2021, we were given the opportunity to meet the mayor and deputy mayor of Hino Town,” he says. “The project was unprecedented and we had no guarantee of success at the time, but we shared with them the concept and thinking behind our company’s secure and comfortable accident resolution process based on the best mix of people’s capabilities and digital technologies. They responded positively, saying that they had, in fact, been hoping to implement DX for administrative services with the aim of enhancing the experience for both residents and municipal staff.”

Mr. Hisada continues: “Through numerous in-person and online discussions, we were able to make steady progress, reaching a conclusion that our own experience with DX, which was the hard-earned culmination of a process of trial and error, could help them improve their counter services. We finalized the details in the spring of 2022, and have now been supporting Hino Town for a year. We are now ready to expand this DX support service to other local municipalities.”

At the core of the DX support service based on trust built over 18 months is the Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) Accompanying Support Service, a consulting service that draws on Tokio Marine ＆ Nichido’s insurance payment expertise. By collaborating with partners, the company also provides support in developing and installing necessary systems to achieve the optimal BPR work flow.

For the birth registration process, for example, residents have traditionally been required to fill out their name, address and date of birth on 10 different forms, all of which were carefully checked by municipal staff to ensure that there were no errors. However, with the installation of an online screening/application system, residents only need to enter their personal information once, and the system automatically checks for errors.

At Tokio Marine ＆ Nichido, workers used to struggle in a similar manner, creating countless check sheets and going over documents endlessly to find and correct errors. By sharing their experience with Hino Town municipal staff, the company succeeded in building rapport and was able to provide services that truly matched their needs.

Hino Town staff were at first reluctant to make fundamental changes to their conventional procedures. To persuade them, Hiroki Kunimoto says he and others at the Claim Services Operation Division “visited Hino Town repeatedly to convince them of the merits of proceeding with DX, help all staff members to understand the in-depth significance and purpose of DX, and support them step-by-step to envision the outcome in concrete terms.”

According to Mr. Kunimoto: “The real purpose of DX is to enhance both quality and productivity. Our goal is not merely to achieve digitalization, but to improve the residents’ experience through enhanced services

For example, the system allowed people to pre-register the birth online, this then allowed staff to understand the family structure and therefore when people came to register in person they were able to say something personal, for example, “congratulations on the birth of your second child”.

“By presenting the ‘before DX’ and ‘after DX’ situation in these kinds of concrete terms, we sometimes get comments like, ‘Now I see what DX is all about.’”

The new DX support service allowed Tokio Marine ＆ Nichido to be sure that its expertise in insurance payment processing could be put to good use in fields other than insurance, which has tremendous value in itself. Insurance payment is a task that begins when a customer files a report on an accident. In this sense, it is not uncommon for the work to be described as “passive” compared to what sales departments do.

“When the DX support service for municipalities was launched, a large number of our company’s employees joined the project from across Japan by using the Project Request System, an in-house “side job” program that allows them to participate in various projects while still performing their original jobs,” says Mr. Hisada.

“Many of them gave positive feedback, like, ‘I was delighted to have been able to help municipalities based on the expertise we have acquired in our daily operations. This experience has been fulfilling and has motivated me to work hard.’ As an insurance company, we have been providing value to our policyholders, but from now on, we will also be able to contribute to the broader society by delivering value to all residents in the area we serve.”

The company is aiming to provide the DX support service across a broader geographic area in an effort to serve other municipalities. “By making use of the service model we built with Hino Town, we are promoting the service among other municipalities toward the goal of offering it to about 10 by the end of FY 2023,” Mr. Kunimoto explains.

Tokio Marine ＆ Nichido claims department is highly committed to the launch of DX support service for municipalities, and regards it as a “second founding” for their services. In Tokio Marine’s endeavor to deliver on its purpose of “protecting customers and society in times of need,” the company will continue to provide value including and beyond the framework of insurance.