Sanjeev Kapur is senior vice-president and chief marketing officer of MetLife Asia. MetLife is one of the world’s leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. MetLife has been working in Nepal since 2001. It offers various services such as life insurance, accident and health insurance and employee benefits. MetLife has recently launched its new product 360Health in Nepal, an end-to-end health solution that takes care of the mental, physical, social and financial health of an individual. The Post’s Subin Adhikari caught up with Kapur to discuss the prospect of 360Health and the protection industry in Nepal. Excerpts:

Please tell us about MetLife Nepal and its new customer service app.

MetLife provides various protection services to the customers. As one goes through the course of life there are various events that happen with health, life and finances that put them and their family in a challenging situation. The goal of MetLife is to provide a variety of protection solutions that make customers confident of their future. Our app "One by MetLife Nepal" is a platform that brings all the protection services of our company to the fingertips of a user. The updated version of the app also provides access to 360Health Solution, our new and most innovative product. Besides, the app also provides services to become an agent of MetLife, a premium calculator, customer support, and information regarding various insurance packages.

What is MetLife’s 360Health Solution?

360Health is an end-to-end healthcare solution which, in addition to insurance for treatment expenses, also offers preventive and curative measures such as health risk assessment via face and finger scan using artificial intelligence (AI) enabled software, medical tests at home, ambulance service, doctor visits, telemedicine, home delivery of medicine and a discount card to visit various hospitals. Some of the features of 360Health will be accessible to everyone for free to increase the accessibility to healthcare for free. However, the development of these high-value technologies requires resources so premium features will be exclusive to the customers of our insurance packages. Besides, the out-of-pocket health expenditure in Nepal is around 55 percent as compared to a developed country like Japan’s 12 percent which increases the vulnerability to financial insecurities in case of any major illness. 360Health protects clients from such risks as well and offers insurance for the expenses of medical treatment.

How do you believe MetLife’s 360Health Solution will improve the healthcare system in Nepal?

A conventional protection product starts working only when a negative event takes place, but that’s not really guarding people against unforeseen challenges. In our case, we want to analyse if we can prevent people from getting into a problem in the first place; and if they get into a problem, how can we help them solve it and get back to a proper condition? This requires an end-to-end solution. The life expectancy in Nepal has increased to 73 years and it will continue to increase due to medical advances. But there’s also an increase in the gap between lifespan–how long you live, and healthspan–how long you live healthy. This gap is 10 years in Nepal. This increasing gap is caused due to rising incidents of long-term serious illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and so on. We want to decrease this gap. Around 61 percent of all deaths in Nepal are caused due to such illnesses which has become a big issue. Nepal’s medical infrastructure isn’t able to keep up with the rising incidence of these illnesses. Nepal has less than one doctor per 1,000 population, so access to healthcare is limited. We want the users of Nepal to get access to international doctors, and specialists that may not be available in Nepal and give them access to breakthrough healthcare technologies such as using phones to monitor health indicators and statistics. We leverage technology to get instant access to healthcare and promote healthy habits which increases their health span as well.

What exciting features can users expect in 360Health Solution in the upcoming releases in Nepal?

We have partnered with a variety of small establishments such as local diagnostics, hospitals and medicine shops to create a network of service providers. We have also partnered with Binah, an Israeli technology company that develops artificial intelligence (AI) technology that turns smartphones into health monitoring devices that can check vital signs including heart rate, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate. We want to include both local and global companies to bring the best services to the user. The technology developed by Binah is available exclusively in Nepal. We are providing the full integration of all the services offered by MetLife and 360Health in one application, which is available nowhere in Asia. In other markets, they have to use some other apps to access 360Health. But we want to make the service easy, and effortless to Nepali users.

MetLife’s 360Health Solution combines the features of insurance products and health services, a relatively new concept in Nepal. What are the challenges?

Our service is a noble concept in Nepal. We are trying to help the government’s mission of increasing the accessibility of quality healthcare, health infrastructure and a better lifestyle to the public when they retire. Because of it, the burden of the government lessens. We are getting a lot of support from the government and regulators. From our internal customer research, we have found that they really love our product and what we are trying to do. We are optimistic about getting a good response when it's available to the masses.

Is there any special product for Nepal?

Cardiovascular disease and hypertension are one of the biggest emerging issues in Nepal which affects around 25 percent of the population. Our services are tailor-made for Nepal for the prevention and cure of these diseases as a top priority. Besides, the population of Nepal is also ageing without much support for retirement plans and social security. We are also planning to introduce retirement plans such as 360Future which are already available in some markets of Asia. We have localised the best practices, and best technologies from all over the world. We are introducing the products and practices that have been tried and tested globally.