Absa Life is offering qualifying Absa Bank clients life assurance without the inconvenience of filling in a lengthy questionnaire or going for a medical check-up. The life assurer has used “big data technology” to pre-qualify 700 000 bank clients for life cover. (“Big data” refers to any voluminous amount of data that has the potential to be mined for information.) Jannie Venter, the managing executive at Absa Life, says the assurer has eliminated the need for traditional underwriting with questionnaires and medical tests, and can pre-qualify certain clients with its predictive underwriting solution, called Affinity. However, only applicants who meet certain conditions, apart from being an Absa client, qualify to be underwritten through Affinity. The conditions are: