SK Telecom Opens Era of Mobile Phone Insurance Without Paper Document Submission

[Asia Economy Reporter Joesulgina] SK Telecom announced on the 3rd that it will provide the ‘Initial Mobile Phone Insurance Compensation Service,’ which allows customers to apply for and process mobile phone insurance compensation without submitting paper certificates, based on blockchain technology, a representative 5G technology.

Users will receive repair statements and receipts from mobile phone service centers in the form of electronic certificates issued through the Initial application. These can be sent directly to the insurance company via the app for insurance review. The issued and submitted electronic certificates are securely managed using Initial blockchain technology to prevent forgery, alteration, and leakage.

As a result, the process of customers having to receive or submit certificates themselves is eliminated, removing inconveniences caused by incomplete documents, and it is expected that the entire process from ‘compensation application and review to compensation payment’ can be completed swiftly within 24 hours.

Until now, customers who wanted to receive insurance benefits for mobile phone damage had to visit an AS center for repairs, receive paper repair statements and receipts, and then submit them again to the insurance company via fax, email, or app, which was cumbersome. About 20% of SK Telecom customers experienced document insufficiency judgments during the mobile phone damage insurance compensation process.

SK Telecom will first implement the ‘Initial Mobile Phone Insurance Compensation Service’ with Samsung Electronics Service and plans to expand cooperation with other companies later. Customers who have subscribed to SK Telecom’s existing mobile phone damage insurance product and use Samsung Galaxy series devices can use the service through the ‘Initial app’ without any separate subscription procedures. The Initial app can be downloaded from One Store and Play Store.

In particular, this service is highly significant as the first outcome of the ‘Initial DID Consortium (consortium-type blockchain network),’ launched last year by a coalition of 14 companies including SK Telecom. Starting with mobile phone insurance services, the ‘Initial DID Consortium’ plans to enable the issuance of about 30 types of electronic certificates through the Initial app in fields such as finance, medical care, public services, and education within this year, and to commercialize original certificate verification services with major domestic financial institutions and large corporations.

Going forward, Initial is expected to replace existing paper certificates and certified certificates by improving the complex procedures of issuing and submitting paper certificates and achieving innovations such as cost reduction. Through this, it aims to lead the digital certification market capable of verifying identity, qualifications, and ownership, and to expand into the ‘MyData’ field in the future. Initial is a mobile electronic certification service that uses blockchain and DID (decentralized identity) technology to issue and store various certificates directly on the user’s device in a one-stop manner, and when necessary, submit them to receiving institutions to verify forgery, alteration, and authenticity.

Kim Seongsu, Head of Sales at SK Telecom, said, “With the application of Initial to the mobile phone insurance compensation service, SK Telecom customers can receive more convenient and faster compensation services,” adding, “Blockchain technology will be utilized in various service areas in the future, such as the combination of insurance services and Initial.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.