In insurance, process automation is becoming a mandate
It was forecast not so long ago that process automation would gain traction in the insurance industry as it has elsewhere. As one Deloitte report put it, “Insurance companies are often perceived as being conservative in their approach and slower to embrace changes. Unfortunately, such inertia is no longer a viable option.”
The impacts of COVID-19 have forcibly driven change for many industries, including financial services, and especially insurance. The sudden pivot to remote workforces, the need to find efficiencies and slash costs, have opened a lot of eyes to the ways existing tools can drive evolution of tools and processes that pays off in better customer experiences and, as importantly, Business Continuity Transformation™ that can buttress an organization against future shocks.
As in other sectors, there’s now a rush of investment into technology designed for the insurance industry. But anyone who’s been paying attention would know that new tech and new ideas can pay off big even for a seemingly conservative industry like insurance. As our Steven O’Donnell wrote of his time at Progressive, the company quadrupled in size during those 15 years, largely due to innovations like being one of the first providers to allow direct online policy purchases.
Accelerating and optimizing a key process
Here’s a single example of how one solution, process automation, can transform the customer experience a P&C insurer delivers within a key process, and produce plenty of other benefits, too.
It’s plain to see that fast, efficient claims processing is a key ingredient of success for an insurance provider. But it can also be a highly manual, time-consuming process, one that’s an almost cliché source of frustration for customers and the insurers trying to service them. Agents need to collect and check information from a variety of sources: Medical reports and certificates (if there’s an injury, health, or life policy claim), photos of damaged vehicles or personal property, police reports, or whatever else is salient to the claim.