Discover how DHL Group increased connectivity across the enterprise and automated multiple processes end-to-end
The claims process is the most important customer touch point in the insurance journey. It’s the crux the entire process and customers expect remuneration promptly. 69% of insurers rated customer experience as ‘very important’ within the claims department. By accelerating the claims process, not only can you delight customers, but you can also gain efficiency and therefore cost reduction. So it’s a process that is worth optimizing.
The reason that the claims process isn’t as efficient as it should be in 2018 is usually down to the antiquated technology that the established, incumbent insurers use. These systems have been built up over years and years and have become siloed, leading to disconnected processes.
Emerging technologies that offer speed and ease of use, both at the back and customer-facing ends, are making the marketplace more competitive than ever. Deploying this tech is easier said than done for many companies who still heavily rely on their legacy applications.
A recent survey by insurance service company A.M. Best revealed that the top two areas in the industry that needed technology improvement are:
These two areas will essentially support each other: integrate new technology with legacy systems and you’ll be equipped with the tools to provide a better experience. But you don’t need to rip and replace your legacy systems to be able to take advantage of the latest applications such as RPA, IoT, and telematics.
As new technology and applications are taken up by insurers, the claims process is evolving. In motor insurance, black boxes are becoming more prevalent when it comes to determining the nature of claims. There is a 20% decrease in likelihood that customers ages 17-25 with telematics will have an accident, according to EY. And it won’t be long until self-driving cars are a common sight: Business Insider predicts that by 2020 there will be 10 million autonomous cars on the road.
As sensor monitoring becomes the norm, home sensor technology will allow for more effective monitoring of incidents such as fire and flooding. Sensor tech can also provide advanced warning of weather-related natural disasters, like flooding, which will help to protect property and reduce risk.
New generation technology platforms will deliver many benefits for insurers, such as enhanced and more specific segmentation, streamlined workflows, more efficient core processes, improved productivity. They just need to ensure that they are compatible with their legacy systems.
Insurance is an industry that’s built on information. But when this information is stored in numerous silos that have become more complex over time, it becomes a hinderance rather than an asset. By connecting your systems, you can streamline workflows, process claims more efficiently and deploy automation capabilities to improve your team’s productivity and delight your customers.
While larger ticket insurance claims will always require some human intervention, the process can still be made easier with the help of RPA to connect your information. Avoid creating a complex spaghetti structure between systems, processes, data and people by instead instilling a centralized repository that pulls data in from all your systems via APIs.
Bizagi helped Generali when they embarked on an organization-wide business transformation project to boost productivity. Bizagi’s system architecture enabled the company to deploy more processes at scale and make better use of resources. They also eliminated many paper-based systems and replaced them with automated and efficient workflow using the multi-language BPM solution.
As a result, 38 automated processes were fully operational within just 6 months and Generali’s insurance claims loss ratio was reduced by 2-5%. The organization saw 60% cost savings, which is projected to grow to 90% through re-use. The process audit was fully automated to enable agility in response to changing regulation.
96% of carriers have decided that claims transformation and digitization is imperative – and will help to deliver results as seen by Generali. Not only will it improve customer experience, but it will also help to identify fraudulent claims. A transparent, but secure view of data across systems combined with indicators pulled in from external sources, such as IoT devices, can help insurers detect, investigate and prevent fraud.
“The successful claims operation will be able to identify valuable data from all available resources, and use this to provide a more effective customer experience,” reports EY in its ‘The future of claims’ report. As touchless claims become the norm for small scale items, automation can help insurers to validate and process claims and provide customers with a streamlined experience.
The claims process is, after all, the most important customer touch point in the insurance journey. By taking an automated approach to your claims process, you can offer your customers an efficient service that is as slick as it is timely.
As highlighted by EY, customer service is not always defined by the level of human interaction on offer, but the level and quality of choice available to customers. When it comes to claiming, customers expect self-service, multi-channel service as they’ve come accustomed to in other industries (such as online shopping with Amazon and travel with Uber). So your channels need to be able to support this.
With technology moving at such a fast pace, insurers must evolve or die. This is the brutal truth insurers are facing. Emerging technologies that offer speed and ease of use, both at the back and customer-facing ends are making the marketplace even more competitive than ever.
