Birla Sun Life Insurance Company Ltd., pioneer of Unit Linked Life Insurance plans, has appointed Quest Diagnostics India Private Ltd as its exclusive provider of health assessment services in India.

The private insurance major has entered into a long-term agreement with Quest Diagnostics India Pvt. Ltd., the wholly-owned subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, an international leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services, to provide health assessment services.

Under terms of the agreement, Quest Diagnostics will be the special provider of full-service medical screening and diagnostic testing of life insurance candidates, and related administrative services for Birla Sun Life's individual life-insurance underwriting business.

In the sales of life insurance plans, an important touch-point is the customer experience during medical examination. To ensure standardization and quality experience, Birla Sun Life Insurance has been evaluating processes which would result in consistent and positive experience across the country.

Quest Diagnostics will provide a range of health management services to Birla Sun Life Insurance, including laboratory testing through its new 65,000 square-foot diagnostic testing facility in Gurgaon, as well as case management and appointment scheduling of medical exams by trained and accredited physicians. Quest Diagnostics will serve Birla Sun Life Insurance using the company's proprietary ExamView medical services and CaseView laboratory-test ordering and reporting software, which is used by the company's risk assessment business, ExamOne, based in Lenexa, KS, to serve insurance companies in around 20 countries.

Presently, the underwriting at Birla Sun Life Insurance is a 3-step process where the agent primarily liaisons with the Medical Service Provider. Under the new arrangement with Quest Diagnostics, the agent would log-in the query at the call centre to arrange for pre-policy medical tests. From there, Quest Diagnostics would take over. Hence, a common interface would be present.

Vikram Mehmi, president & CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance said, "We envisage setting new levels of service standards in underwriting and improving quality of underwriting and risks involved. Quality and standardisation of medical reports and effective handling of underwriting and operations are the benefits to be reaped by this initiative".

"Through our agreement with Birla Sun Life Insurance, we bring to India a level of expertise in health assessment, testing, and related services that has, until now, been largely absent from the country's booming life insurance market. As India's insurance market continues its fast paced growth, we look forward to delivering services that will enable Birla Sun Life to drive quality and cost efficiencies in its underwriting process", stated Janak Singh Bajwa, managing director, Quest Diagnostics India Pvt. Ltd.