The insurance industry's view on touchless claims

Earlier this year, Claims magazine and PropertyCasualty360.com partnered with Celent, a research advisory firm, to take the insurance industry’s temperature on automating the claims process. Insurtech has become a dominant force in the industry and it was important to capture a broader picture of how companies and their policyholders view touchless claims.

Andrew Schwartz, an analyst with Celent, conducted the study and shared his findings at the recent America’s Claims Executive Forum in New Orleans, La. Some of the results surprised him and some confirmed his hypotheses.

Before overseeing the study, Schwartz shared that he believed touchless claims processes had gained a significant amount of acceptance among insurers. Interestingly, while the pandemic expedited the industry’s use of technology to handle everything from purchasing insurance to filing the first notice of loss for a claim (FNOL) and even payments, only 33% of the organizations that responded to the study indicated that they are using a touchless claims process.

However, while only a third of the respondents are currently utilizing various aspects of touchless claims, 97% believe these processes are valuable to carriers and policyholders.

One of the major barriers to the adoption of a touchless claims process involves the challenge of integrating the needed technology into a company’s core legacy systems. Insurers that have not upgraded their hardware or platforms will have more difficulty making the transition to touchless claims.

There is a perception that the use of touchless claims means there is no human interaction during the claims process, but Schwartz explains that “touchless doesn’t mean claims are totally automated.” Aspects of the process may be such as the FNOL or verifying coverage for a policyholder or capturing the initial images from a loss but claims adjusters and managers will still be an important part of these claims.

For more insights from the Celent/PropertyCasualty360.com touchless claims study, listen to the podcast above or find Insurance Speak on Spotify, Apple Music or Libsyn.

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• The future of claims blends human and digital
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• Digitizing & humanizing customer experience in insurance