LexisNexis® ELITE Award 2025
AIA Singapore
AIA Singapore’s Legal team, led by Penny Koo, General Counsel and Company Secretary, spearheaded the transformation of AIA Singapore’s legal matters and contract management process to a fully digital legal service delivery platform that streamlines end-to-end legal service delivery, the first of its kind across AIA’s 18 country business units.
During COVID, the team piloted a legal innovation project to digitise the company’s hard copy contract approval form—a process that previously required physical signatures from multiple departments and typically took a week. Leveraging only internal Tech and Legal resources and a lean budget of ~ S$25,000, they created an enterprise fully digital model with digital signature functionality in 6 months. Building on this success, the department has since implemented a fully digital legal service delivery platform to streamline end-to-end delivery.
The fully digital legal service delivery platform—customised for each business line has slashed contract turnaround times, while ensuring all required clauses, provisions, and local regulatory and governance standards are met. This elevated legal’s strategic value by effectively enabling lawyers to redirect time from voluminous low risk/impact legal tasks to strategic counsel, upholding robust corporate governance and enterprise risk management and value creation.
Key challenges—budget, user-centred design and enterprise adoption—were addressed through a data-driven business case tied to Legal KPIs, an FAQ/chat bot embedded for real-time support, and multiple implementation updates, video demos and trainings for managers and business users.
Guided by “faster, simpler, more connected,” the team digitalised processes to safeguard customer personal information and strengthen governance across negotiations with counterparties and contractual documentation. With this, AIA Singapore became the first country business unit in the Group’s 18 markets to launch a fully digital legal service delivery platform facilitating end-to-end advisory and transactional documentation for business colleagues.
Embedded as a strategic partner across technology, operations, distribution, and customer experience teams, the legal team has collaborated with various business functions to deliver several key achievements:
• Integrating SGFinDex into the company’s consumer app.
• Implementing Claims EZ, a claims system, which saw more than 90% of claims e-submitted in 2025, with about 95% paid electronically.
• Deploying iSMART+ app’s Customer Lifecycle Trigger module, generating leads with over 21% conversion rate, contributing to AIA Singapore’s strong business results.
In 2024, Value of New Business has grown 15%, and Annualised New Premium increased 52% to USD 897 million —proving that legal innovation, underpinned by strong ethical governance, can support and drive growth.
Under Penny’s leadership, the legal team at AIA Singapore has maintained a steadfast commitment to sustainable and responsible business growth. Every innovation introduced by the team undergoes thorough risk assessment, ensuring that legal technology solutions are not only innovative but also safe and fully compliant. This rigorous approach helps to ensure that each initiative is consistently aligned with AIA’s core mission of enabling Healthier, Longer, Better Lives.
The legal team’s dual focus on advancing innovation and upholding strong governance standards underscores their belief that maintaining high standards does not have to come at the expense of business progress. Instead, their approach demonstrates that robust oversight and sustainable business expansion can work hand in hand and strengthen one another. Through their ongoing efforts, the team provides clear evidence that legal innovation, effective risk management, and responsible growth can successfully coexist, delivering tangible value to the organisation and its stakeholders.