The case for connected insurance
There are three key benefits insurers can expect when using low-code to deliver a connected insurance experience.
“Innovation springs from necessity, not abundance” is a phrase that resonated more than ever during the pandemic. It’s been well documented that insurance organizations were forced to quickly pivot and enable an all-remote workforce while still maintaining their full ability to write business and handle claims. Most firms have spent years refining their underwriting and claims processes to gain efficiencies, increase speed, and improve customer satisfaction and retention.
Yet suddenly, workflows that retained manual touchpoints were stressed as underwriters could no longer meet face-to-face with producers, claims adjusters could no longer conduct site visits, and mailrooms struggled to manage paper documents in a safe and secure way. However, insurers one by one incorporated “life hacks” into their underwriting and claims processes to enable business as usual as best they could, often through the creativity and innovative spirit of their workforce and new technology.
While initially viewed as a temporary arrangement during an unusual time, by now, virtually all organizations recognize that they are at the point of no return when it comes to doing business the old pre-pandemic way. To truly enable a digital workforce and manage work using digital workflows, more robust technology is needed.
Driving differentiation with connected insurance
Technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA), low-code, AI, and machine learning have proven their value in automating and digitizing manual processes and integrating disparate legacy systems to create a single, connected engagement layer. To this end, insurance firms have more recently focused on the concept of connected insurance, which Forrester senior analyst Jeffrey Williams describes as a means for digitizing how customers engage with you — helping to drive increased revenue, lower costs, and improve conversion.
In short, connected insurance encompasses a suite of technologies that go beyond simple rule-based systems to incorporate intelligent automated decision-making and optimization to help insurers boost profitability and improve the customer experience.
A big component of what enables connected insurance is leveraging what Gartner describes as hyperautomation, which is all about automation at speed. It is an approach to combining automation technologies (like RPA, AI, machine learning, intelligent document processing, etc.) with technologies that allow for faster application (like low-code) to create a single workflow that helps insurers maximize resources and drive better business results. Hyperautomation will allow insurers to move faster and, using the right low-code, remain agile as the industry continues to evolve rapidly.
Three major reasons to look at workflow automation
While the opportunities are enormous, these are three key benefits insurers can expect when using low-code to deliver a connected insurance experience:
1. Unleash the power of data and algorithms. By delivering a connected insurance experience based on automated workflows, insurers can take their data and algorithms to the next level. This will only become more and more critical, as insurers are going to essentially compete on algorithms in the next decade and beyond. By integrating advanced data sources (including IoT, telematics, wearables, and more) and combining those insights with all the knowledge already stored in their legacy systems, insurers can deliver greater value throughout the insurance life cycle. Creating a single trusted view of data is what will allow insurers to deliver the hyper-personalized, seamless insurance experience today’s customers demand — and low-code makes that possible.
2. Increase agility and flexibility. Another selling point for deploying a connected insurance model with automated workflow is that it moves the tools closer to the workers actively doing the job. Because of this, less is lost in translation between business leaders and IT when describing processes and coding solutions. Increasing collaboration and speed allows insurers to innovate faster and chart a path to more wholesale, transformative changes in key areas, whether that be agent and broker channel automation, underwriting, or claims management. As the pandemic has shown us, the need to move fast is critical, and the insurers that will emerge on top in the future are the ones that can rapidly respond to change.
3. Empower your employees. Another reason to invest in connected insurance is the ongoing talent shortage within the insurance industry, which is further exacerbated by an aging workforce that is seeing a wave of retirements as part of the “Great Resignation.” In the past, firms have relied upon formal and informal mentoring for the passing of tacit knowledge (i.e., undocumented knowledge) from more seasoned underwriters and claims professionals to more junior employees. However, this apprenticeship model is challenged when employees are no longer co-located in the same office and is outmoded in a world where employees change companies often.
Connected insurance allows organizations to digitize the hard-earned expertise of their underwriters and claims professionals, allowing for faster onboarding of new hires while driving more consistency in decision outcomes by a distributed workforce. Furthermore, because connected insurance helps automate once-manual tasks, it frees up staff to focus on more high-impact, meaningful work. Touting one’s digital-first capabilities and leading innovation status can be a key differentiator as the war for top talent wages on.
Keeping an eye on the future
While connected insurance is a leap forward, it is critical that organizations view these capabilities through a strategic lens and build a roadmap for implementation that aligns with their strategic objectives. Additionally, there are many important considerations to account for, including data security and privacy protection, combating cyber threats, and AI ethics.
To effectively compete with the many insurtech startups and digital-forward incumbents, insurance leaders need to find ways to incorporate emerging technologies like low-code to increase their agility and speed of innovation and differentiate themselves in the years to come.
The opinions expressed here are the aauthor’sown.
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