How Intelligent Automation Streamlines Claims Handling, Ensures a Positive Customer Experience, and Minimises Fraud and Errors

For quite some time, the insurance industry was something of an outlier when it came to digitalisation. Unlike many other businesses, insurance processes remained relatively manual, meaning that many insurance companies could carry on without experiencing the full demand of digital disruption.

To an extent, this was due to the strict regulatory environment. The time and effort required to create a risk portfolio and build trust with customers also made the large-scale adoption of digital solutions cost-prohibitive.

However, the latest research suggests that the insurance industry is finally ready to reinvent itself.

A recent IBM survey of over 800 insurance executives indicates a significant shift in the market that will shape the industry over the next few years. Here are the main takeaways you should know:

• While market pressures and regulatory concerns were their main concerns in 2015, a whopping 68% of the survey participants reported that increased competition and changing consumer preferences now top their agenda. 

• A further 67% also expect technological advances to play a major role in reshaping their businesses. 

• Where previously executives worried about digital giants and other sectors stealing their market share, they now believe that the real disruption will come from industry incumbents that have embraced innovative technologies and tech-savvy startups — also known as insurtechs.

• 73% of surveyed executives expect artificial intelligence (AI) to bring about major improvements in customer service in the near future, including personalised client-centric experiences. 

What do these numbers mean for the future of claims processing — and what can you do to streamline your workflows, embrace new technologies, and improve the customer experience before it’s too late?

Read on to find out.

The Top 3 Issues with Claim Processing

To the uninitiated, insurance claims processing seems pretty straightforward. A customer suffers a loss covered by their policy and submits a claim. The insurance company then reviews the information provided and decides whether to make a payout. End of story.

The trouble is, if you’re at all familiar with the insurance business, you know that this is far from the truth.

1. Insurers Are Drowning in Claims

Sure, processing one claim may be simple enough. 

But when you consider the fact that the average insurer receives thousands of claims every day, things suddenly get a lot trickier.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

2. Customers Submit More Documentation Than Ever

Due to changing compliance and regulatory requirements, customers looking to make a claim now have to provide more information than ever before. 

This results in heaps of data that overwhelm insurance teams in an already document-heavy, time-consuming, and complex process.

3. Claims Processing Teams Handle Mountains of Unstructured Data

While many customers now submit claims online, insurers still have to process an overwhelming number of unstructured documents riddled with poor handwritten data. This makes it difficult to extract the relevant information and match it to the respective policy.

The Challenge

These issues present insurance organisations with a unique challenge. 

On the one hand, customers expect quick, painless, and readily available help. 

At the same time, if you want to remain competitive, you must streamline and accelerate claims processing while ensuring a positive customer experience and minimising the risk of fraud and errors.

Traditionally, it was impossible to reconcile these contradicting demands. You couldn’t speed up claims handling by a significant margin without adding additional staff or sacrificing accuracy and customer service.

But then automation technology came along — and rewrote the rules of the game. 

The Solution

Unitek’s Automation Experience Platform offers a quick, easy-to-use, and cost-effective solution to the most common issues insurers have when processing insurance claims.

Instantaneous Data Extraction

Unitek’s intelligent data extraction solution automatically extracts and translates unstructured data — such as handwritten medical reports, motor claim forms, and prescriptions — into structured and easy-to-read information.

Fully Automated Policy Checks

Once extraction is complete, the data is matched against the respective insurance policy using technologies such as deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), knowledge graphs, and contextual reasoning.

NLP makes it possible to automatically understand the contents of policy documents and check whether a claim is valid in regard to the respective policy agreement. This enables you to move through customer data efficiently and deliver quick and accurate results.

Claim Enrichment

Unitek’s Automation Experience Platform also allows you to quickly and easily enrich individual claims with real-time information from external providers, such as online and public data sources. All data sources are acquired from GDPR-compliant providers, so there is no risk of breaches.

The system also automatically refers to both macro and micro-level data sources to check for fraud, abuse, and outliers.

Curious to Learn More?

Request a free, no-strings-attached demo to see the Automation Experience Platform in action and talk to one of our automation specialists.