What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Covid-19 posed immediate and significant challenges to our business, since life insurance is still traditionally sold face-to-face in Asia. The AIA Singapore Legal team was thrust into the forefront of navigating a slew of new laws and regulations passed by the Singapore government that affected almost all aspects of our business, including having to find quick solutions to facilitate non-face-to-face insurance sales while most staff were working remotely.

On the business enablement front – there were several milestone business achievements for AIA Singapore where the legal team played a key role. First, AIA Singapore being the first insurer in Singapore to partner Singapore’s Government Technology Agency pilot. We successfully integrated GovTech’s National Digital Identity and SingPass for all Singapore citizens into AIA Singapore’s digital platform which digitised signing processes end-to-end, transformed customer experience and reduced operational costs. This project required advice on legal validity of signatures under Singapore’s Electronic Transactions Act, security of back-end and validation, compliance with privacy regulations and strong engagement with regulators.

While stressful, Covid-19 provided numerous opportunities for the legal team to take the lead and elevate our legal services delivery – including introducing our fully digital in-house contract approval platform, that fortuitously had been in the planning just prior to the pandemic. This was the legal team’s first milestone in our technology journey – the previously-manual and paper-based legal contract review and approval process was successfully approved and launched within six months. In the same period, we also launched an enterprise-wide electronic signature solution during the Singapore Covid-19 lockdown.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team? 

I am a strong proponent of legal innovation and optimising our in-house legal service delivery model. I would, however, distinguish between innovation and technology – the latter is an enabler of the former, but not necessarily the “cure” to the usual in-house pain points.

For legal departments at early stages of their innovation journey – first consider if processes can be simplified or removed altogether. Large conglomerates, in particular, have inherited various governance requirements and processes that may once have been necessary but are no longer relevant or fit-for-purpose. Business models evolve, as does enterprise risk tolerances. It is incumbent upon the gatekeepers to regularly revisit their review and approval processes. Legal innovation isn’t just about technology, but optimising the way lawyers operate.

With the slew of legal technology offerings in the market now, it is tempting to start shopping for a one-stop shop technology platform to facilitate our work. Technology solutions, however, are not cheap and involve significant enterprise effort to implement. It also requires buy-in from business end-users. Starting by exploring using existing enterprise systems or software not only saves time and costs, but it also has a significantly higher chance of business user adoption.