Automation: Game Over for Insurers?
A new white paper produced by Insurance Nexus explores themes such as insurance practitioner fears of automation, interviewing underwriting and claims professionals.
According to Steve Tait, RSA’s Head of Claims Automation “We are always under pressure to deliver more with less and that drives the focus to how can we reduce the amount of expenses in claims. And also, there is a pressure to understand how we can do more with the information we have access to and convert that to data to drive insights that reduce claims cost. Basically, be leaner as a business, that is a constant.”
In today’s challenging market conditions, underwriters in London are coming under pressure to cut costs and that pressure is being applied to claims teams. The London market is a different beast to the personal lines and SME market, however, and when it comes to major corporate clients and major risks, clients still demand the personal touch. People can still make a difference but they can be supported by automation.
Hiscox’s Head of UK Claims, Eva Berg-Winters suggests: “Win the hearts of the team and allow them to flourish and drive the answer. It’s their future and they should be the ones shaping it. If the team believes and can see how automation changes their working lives in a good way, they will not only support it but drive it.”
It is obvious that speedier claim resolution is going to play an important role in improving customer experience. At the same time a superb customer experience and falls in indemnity costs are two sides of the same coin. Improving one benefits the other. The key point to make here is that intelligent application of both human and technological resource will be major drivers of improvement.
Klaus Vogel, Senior Vice President and Head of Claims, If P&C Insurance acknowledges that offering multiple points of contact remains vital but also introduces an element of risk: “The business model for most claims handlers going forward will be a combination of automation and manual interactions with the customer. This will put a lot of demands on us as insurers in securing and giving good customer experience. If we fail in just one step in the whole process, either automated or personal interaction, it will lead to negative impressions.”
In next week’s blog we look at DOCOsoft’s approach to automation.