【IB Co., Ltd.】Consolidating Insurance Policies with Generative AI! "Hokenbo", a Claim Omission Prevention App That Even Diagnoses Blind Spots Like "Getting Injured Can Be Covered by Fire Insurance?"

The Absurdity I Learned from Volunteering After the Great East Japan Earthquake: "No One Even Knows What Insurance Parents Have"

Hello, everyone. My name is Kenta Ito, and I am the Representative Director of IB Co., Ltd.

We are a fintech startup with a vision to completely eliminate "insurance claim omission" from the world.

As my personal background, I had been studying insurance since my university days. In 2011, when I was a junior, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. As I entered the disaster areas as a volunteer and witnessed houses washed away by the tsunami or collapsed, I learned of a serious absurdity: "People don't know what insurance they are enrolled in because their insurance policies are not at hand." When a policyholder passes away or gets injured due to a disaster, their family members must claim the insurance money on their behalf. However, like many others, I had absolutely no idea what kind of fire insurance, life insurance, or mutual aid my own parents were enrolled in, or with which companies.

At that time, smartphones were just beginning to spread. I realized that we needed an infrastructure where both paper and electronic policies could be consolidated into a single personal account and easily shared among family members. Conceiving this idea, which I named "Hokenbo" (Insurance Ledger) during my graduation thesis, was the first trigger for starting this business.

Since the My Number card concept was also emerging around that time, I was confident that in the future, by connecting insurance ledgers with medical and administrative data, we could realize a future where insurance claims would be automatically paid without disaster victims having to go through any procedures, or address change procedures could be completed in a one-stop manner.

However, I thought this was something the government or public institutions should do, so I didn't think I would start a business myself. But looking at the movements of the Financial Services Agency after that, I realized that from the viewpoint of neutrality and data management, it is a domain that is difficult for public institutions to handle alone, and I became convinced that it is fully sustainable as a private business. Thus, I decided to found the company in 2018.

In the first place, the time when insurance money is needed is when people are going through extremely difficult times physically and mentally—such as disasters, accidents, illnesses, or the death of beloved family members. It is precisely at such tough times that people are forced to look up difficult terms in policy clauses and go through complicated claim procedures. This applies not only to sad times but also to hopeful and joyful times like marriage, childbirth, or getting a job, which also bring troublesome paperwork. I want to build a society where people can grieve fully when they are sad and rejoice from the bottom of their hearts when they are happy, without the barrier of paperwork. This is our fundamental and strong desire.

Automatic Analysis by Generative AI Just by Uploading. The Unique Value of the "Claim Diagnosis Function" That Identifies Fire Insurance Eligibility for Injuries

"Hokenbo," which we develop and provide, is a smartphone app that anyone can use for free as a policyholder.

The app has three main functions.

First is the consolidated management of all insurance policies. By simply taking a photo of paper insurance policies or contract confirmation documents with a smartphone camera and uploading them, our system instantly analyzes them using Generative AI, automatically organizes the data, and registers them in the app. It supports not only paper policies but also electronic policies of online insurance companies. We cover all insurance products in Japan, from life and non-life insurance to mutual aid (like JA Kyosai and Kenmin Kyosai) and small-amount short-term insurance.

Also, what is often overlooked is "credit card-affiliated insurance." You don't even need to take photos of the policies for these. Just select the brand of the credit card you hold, and you can easily register the travel accident insurance and other benefits affiliated with it.

Second is the easy family sharing function. The registered information can be shared with a family member's account with a single button in the app, allowing family members to confirm the existence of the insurance on their behalf in case of an emergency.

Third is our greatest strength, the "Claim Diagnosis Function." By simply tapping a trouble or event on the app that comes to mind, such as "got injured," "damaged someone else's property," or "my own belongings broke," the app automatically recommends and extracts "insurance that has a possibility of being claimed" from the insurance policies you are enrolled in.

For example, suppose you tap an event like "someone injured me, and I have to negotiate with them." Many people can imagine using medical insurance, but they rarely realize they can use a "legal fee rider" to cover negotiation costs. In fact, this legal fee rider is very often attached as an option not only to automobile insurance but also to "fire insurance." Usually, no one realizes that they can use fire insurance riders when they get injured. Hokenbo automatically connects these buried blind spots of coverage and informs the policyholder.

Supporting this excellent UX is our powerful backend asset—a database that centrally manages master data for products, riders, and detailed policy clauses of all insurance companies in Japan, which cannot be easily replicated by other companies.

"We Will Never Sell Data" to Maintain Neutrality. A Win-Win Revenue Model Co-operated with Insurance Companies

Our business model relies on receiving platform usage fees from insurance companies, without charging users any fees or usage charges.

We are often asked, "Are you selling registered user data to other insurance companies to use for marketing or replacement proposals?" However, we have decided never to sell information or engage in solicitation sales for insurance. This is because if we use information in a biased manner for a specific insurance company, the neutrality of the app will be lost, and we will no longer be able to gain the participation of other competing insurance companies. By remaining a neutral platform, policyholders whose insurance situations are visualized within Hokenbo naturally generate spontaneous insurance consultation needs, which functions as an appropriate guide to partner insurance companies. Thus, we provide sufficient sales benefits to them.

In addition, since we handle family sharing including other companies' insurance and claim diagnosis recommendations on their behalf—tasks that insurance companies find difficult to do on their own as policyholder support tools—we have built a win-win partnership of "co-operation" rather than a confrontational relationship with insurance companies.

In fact, the cautionary information distributed by insurance companies at the time of enrollment always says, "Please share the details of your enrolled insurance with your family." However, a concrete solution on "how to share it" had never existed before. We are receiving very positive and cooperative support from the Financial Services Agency and industry organizations for our movement to target this as the official solution and make it the de facto industry standard.

Currently, we have about 30,000 users and 8 partner insurance companies, which is still a "before the dawn" scale. However, armed with our first-mover advantage in the comprehensiveness of rider master data, we are grasping signs of rapid expansion due to the network effect involving the entire industry.

After the non-payment issues of insurance claims in the 2000s, insurance companies today are very sincere about "paying appropriately when claimed." Rather, to reduce the cost of post-facto investigations and verification of claim omissions, they strongly desire a mechanism where policyholders themselves make claims appropriately. We will grow Hokenbo, in which everyone can be a stakeholder, into Japan's new financial infrastructure. We would highly appreciate your support.

Q&A / Feedback

Commentator (Mr. Mori): Mr. Ito, thank you very much for your wonderful presentation. It is a very practical service, and I felt like downloading and using it right away. Since the time to use insurance is always a physically and mentally difficult moment, lowering the burden of that procedure is extremely valuable.

Regarding the business model, in a model where C-side (general users) is free and you receive platform usage fees from B-side (insurance companies), what is the real aim of insurance companies in paying money? You declared that you do not sell information to other companies for sales activities, so how do insurance companies recover their ROI (Return on Investment)? Also, from a slightly cynical point of view, wouldn't insurance companies secretly prefer claim omissions because it reduces payments and makes them more profitable?

Mr. Ito: Thank you very much for your very sharp questions.

First, regarding the benefit for insurance companies to pay money. While we do not engage in blatant lead sales by handing personal data to other companies in order to protect neutrality, when policyholders organize and visualize their insurance using Hokenbo, they naturally generate spontaneous insurance review and consultation needs, thinking, "Oh, I might be lacking this coverage for my current life stage."

At that time, we are developing a mechanism within the app that allows users to directly contact the representative or counter of the insurance company they are enrolled with, which we plan to release by the end of this year. Because of our neutral position, policyholders can make decisions with peace of mind, which ultimately leads to existing customer retention and appropriate additional proposals (upselling). This provides sufficient sales value to insurance companies.

Mr. Mori: I see. Instead of selling data, by securing a guide as a "contact window" when users themselves want to review their insurance, you contribute to customer retention and additional proposals.

What about the other point, "Wouldn't insurance companies be happy if there are claim omissions?"

Mr. Ito: Actually, once in the past, an executive from the payment department of a major life insurance company directly told me, "It's better if they don't claim, so why do we need to introduce an app that promotes claims?" I sincerely hope that company exits the market soon (laughs). However, most insurance companies today take the exact opposite stance.

The "insurance claim non-payment scandal" that shook the entire industry in the 2000s resulted in severe social sanctions, including administrative actions from the Financial Services Agency. Since then, the insurance industry has dramatically strengthened its compliance system to ensure that "what should be paid is always paid."

In fact, if a claim omission that should have been paid is discovered later, the companies bear huge administrative costs and the risk of brand image damage to investigate retroactively and make refunds, including interest. Therefore, receiving claims appropriately and smoothly through the system from the beginning is actually a huge benefit for insurance companies in terms of both operational efficiency and risk avoidance.

Mr. Mori: I see. Since the non-payment scandal, paying appropriately has become the greatest compliance for insurance companies, and they want appropriate claims to arrive from the beginning to reduce administrative costs. That was a very clear and convincing explanation. I think it is a thorny path to aim for an industry-wide infrastructure while maintaining neutrality, but please do your best to become the de facto standard.

Mr. Ito: Thank you. We will move forward step by step to become an infrastructure that supports everyone's peace of mind.