Q&A: Data-driven interactions are the future of insurance – ABBYY

Lockdown has forced the insurance industry to go digital, how can insurers and brokers integrate this model post-pandemic?

When the pandemic prompted an overnight shift to remote work and virtual customer engagement, the industry was remarkably resilient and innovative. Insurers and brokers figured out how to best manage processes digitally to ensure customer experience wouldn’t suffer.

And that shouldn’t be surprising, since that’s what insurance organisations are meant to do.

We handled Covid-19 like we’d handle any catastrophe.

We had to take care of our customers – and we did. So, from my perspective, insurers and brokers need to continue to innovate, understanding that as an industry we need to accelerate digital adoption and enhance virtual operations, finding better and more permanent solutions to address the gaps in digital capabilities that were exposed by Covid-19.

How can automation benefit brokers and insurers?

Automating processes in every functional area – including quoting, underwriting, policy administration and claims – can benefit an organization at every level.

But brokers and insurers must understand it’s more than making a manual process a digital process – it’s reimagining that process to meet changing needs and expectations – expectations that are not just set by comparing one insurance organisation to another, but by every other digital interaction your customers have.

Consumers have adapted to – and now expect – new ways to interact with insurers and brokers, which means the industry must adapt as well. There are many things that will be different. In many ways, there is no going back.

Ultimately, it’s more than just automation, it’s innovation, with high-impact projects to improve processes and customer experience – projects that will deliver measurable, quantifiable results.

Automated claims processes can help with less complex claims, but what about cases that need more in-depth work? That’s a very good point. The increased use of digital and artificial intelligence will vary depending on the type of claim.

For simple claims this means more automated, fully digital processes, with claims staff focused on ensuring superior customer experience and filling in artificial intelligence (AI) blind spots.

For more complex claims, claims handlers will continue to play a central role, helped by AI-driven tools to improve decision making and automation to help streamline any manual tasks.

How does ABBYY support brokers and insurers?

Our Digital Intelligence Platform gives insurers and brokers insight into processes in every operational area to increase efficiency, improve customer service and reduce costs.

Digital Intelligence combines Content Intelligence – which enables you to understand and create meaning from enterprise content – turning that content into structured, actionable information that makes your workers smarter and processes run more efficiently, and process intelligence – which analyses data from both digital and physical sources to discover patterns and insights that illuminate paths to better customer experiences and new operational efficiencies.

You can easily discover, understand, and manage policy and claims process execution more effectively.

How can the insurance industry capitalise on data?

Success starts with strategic decisions about quoting, underwriting, policy administration and claims management processes based on data analysis and interpretation – not anecdotal evidence or a list of software capabilities. Insurance operations in a digital world – the world we live in now – means rethinking operations and using this opportunity to make processes more interactive, as well as more datadriven, and most importantly, more customer-centric.

For example, data can be used to personalise claims handling, enabling an insurer to have proactive communications with customers throughout the claim life cycle, tailored to individual customer preferences. Using analytics and algorithms to understand the unstructured data in documents, then being able to anticipate questions and send updates through the customer’s preferred communication channel is a data-driven way to improve customer experience.