Addressing customer needs through automation

As technology changes customer expectations, insurers are finding it saves time and money while improving their processes.

While consumer adoption of technology often leads to enterprise adoption, many insurance companies are aware of the convenience, accuracy and speed technology delivers. (Photo: Shutterstock)

We’ve all swiped a screen that isn’t a touch screen, expecting it to behave like a phone or tablet. At some point, we’ve felt the frustration of an online delivery arriving in three days instead of overnight. Uber or Lyft rides that take more than five minutes to arrive create a sense of frustration.

As consumers, we’ve become accustomed to technology delivering what we want instantaneously and effortlessly. Take payments, for example. Up until the 1980s, these were fairly straightforward: Paper bills arrived in the mail and were paid by check or cash. Then, in the mid-1990s, the first wave of new options emerged: eBill, ACH, credit, CSR, IVR, direct bill pay and more. By the mid-2000s, a second wave emerged as mobile, text, email, debit cards and other options offered channel options that further expanded choices. Today, we are entering a third wave with respect to bill payment that incorporates chatbots, AI and voice assistants.

While consumer adoption of technology often leads to enterprise adoption, many insurance companies are taking note of the convenience, accuracy and speed technology delivers, especially given the highly regulated nature of the industry. Such innovations should both facilitate a paying experience that integrates into customers’ channel preferences and protect insurance companies from financial misstatements and potential write-offs with an enterprise approach to transactional reconciliation and certification.

Take, for example, how many insurance companies are moving away from manual financial close processes and implementing faster, more efficient digital methods. Research has shown that manually reconciling just 10 accounts every month can result in saving a total of 55 business days per year. That’s a significant amount of time that can be largely reclaimed with automated processes. Other benefits of automated financial close implementations include:

Assessing readiness for automation

Whether at the beginning of the journey or reassessing current automation implementations, it’s important to assess the maturity of the existing reconciliation and certification processes in your organization. Sometimes, working with an outside partner can help determine how far along the organization is and outline its next steps.

A critical part of a capabilities audit has two clear steps. First, calculate the true hard and soft costs of what will happen if the organization leaves current financial close processes in place. In many cases, this step is a true revelation for organizations holding onto manual or legacy systems. Then, quantify the qualitative values and benefits of investing in an end-to-end, automated reconciliation and certification solution and contrast those benefits to the “maintaining status quo” findings.

Identifying full maturation

For many insurance organizations, it may be difficult to envision what a fully matured, automated financial close system looks like. Currently, a best-practice implementation will include:

In an industry that holds efficiency and risk reduction as cornerstones of success, it makes sense that insurance companies should harness automated financial close technology. Gaining a clear understanding of the next steps and implementing incremental processes that allow for faster, more accurate account reconciliation will help insurance companies to be leaner and more responsive to customer needs.

Rob Houser is senior vice president of product management and strategy for Biller Solutions, Fiserv. Contact him at Robert.Houser@Fiserv.com.

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