With the need for increased speed in underwriting, often in the absence of a paramed exam, Sikka’s indicator suite “meets the moment” for a post-pandemic world.
“Sikka is a very interesting company that’s developed sophisticated indicators around Tobacco, Cardiovascular and Diabetes from dental records.”— Manisha Dias, FSA, FCIA, CERA – AVP of Strategic Partnerships at SCOR
SANTA CLARA, CA, USA, June 16, 2021 — Sikka.ai, the most widely used API integration platform for dental practices in the U.S. and Canada, announces the launch of Sikka Insights, a new business unit that leverages consent-based oral care data to facilitate life insurance underwriting that is both faster and more accurate. This is accomplished through the use of Sikka Insights’ groundbreaking tobacco, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and marijuana usage indicators, which enable more accurate applicant risk classification by carriers and re-insurers, whether used separately or in conjunction with one another.
The efficacy of Sikka Insights’ indicators has been validated across 8 different retrospective studies ranging in size from 2,500 to 8 million records. This rich dataset, which is delivered via seamless API integration either directly or via third party data providers, is poised for imminent, wide adoption by carriers and reinsurers. In fact, industry leaders have already embraced Sikka’s data as an effective data source: “Sikka is a very interesting company that’s developed sophisticated indicators around Tobacco, Cardiovascular, and Diabetes from dental records, ” attests Manisha Dias, FSA, FCIA, CERA – Assistant Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at SCOR.
Similarly, in a recent insurance industry insider thought leadership piece, Greg Solomon, Managing Director, Head of Life & Health for Peak Re, explained that Sikka epitomizes the Scorekeeper model of Insurtech technology, with Sikka’s data showing the strong correlation between oral and overall health.
Vijay Sikka, Founder and CEO of Sikka.ai, sees this new venture as integral to accomplishing the company’s broader mission, saying, “At Sikka Insights, we continuously strive to democratize information. As our award winning platform’s adoption in the dental industry has accelerated, this has allowed us to provide consent-based insights and services to life insurance underwriters and correlate oral health with mortality through multiple indicators. We are delighted that this is increasing efficiency and reducing costs in the life underwriting business, not to mention providing a better level of service to consumers themselves.”
Sikka Insights has engaged with several life insurance industry partners, such that this suite of indicators will be used in production to assist in underwriting new policies starting in the second half of 2021. In the meantime, please join Lewis Goldman, General Manager of Sikka Insights’ Insurance business, and experts from Swiss Re, SCOR and Ethos for a webinar entitled “Open Wide – Leveraging Oral Care and Other Alternative Data To Improve Mortality Risk Assessment in Automated Underwriting” on Thursday, July 1. Watch the webinar.
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Sikka.ai is helping to rethink the important retail healthcare market using an award-winning single API cloud platform that connects to 96% of all practice management and financial systems, combined with deep expertise in artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. With more than 35,000 practice installations and 100 million patients on its platform already, the company’s vision is to become a global, real-time exchange connecting patients, providers and suppliers alike. Sikka’s ONE API won the Best Health API Award for 2019 from API World.
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This press release was originally published June 16, 2021. View the original article here.