6 tips to improve productivity in Insurance with Digital Technologies

Estimated reading time: 2 mins

Insurance is a services sector, where managing overheads and reducing operational expenditure is a must have. The paper-intensive and process-driven work culture makes it the right candidate for a digital overhaul. The high volume, paper processing with the need for skilled human interactions and decision making though challenging is not difficult to digitalize. Reducing turnaround time, ensuring consistency and flexibility first time and every time, and standardizing the core processes are the primary asks in Insurance. Digital Technologies, sometimes also referred to as BPM Technologies, provide value for money as well as a fast return-on-investment or RoI.

The challenges in the Insurance sector

The paper-intensive nature requires repetitive data entry of the data in multiple interfaces and business systems. Even the intra and inter-team collaboration is through paper work and email.

Lack of a unified platform for operations induces large overheads that results in lowered productivity and a lack of visibility and transparency about the real-time status of a process.

The business drivers for adopting Digital Technologies in Insurance

The strongest business driver for digital adoption is the requirement for a unified view and case management over a policy holder’s lifecycle.

Finger-tip access to the required data for quick decision making and real-time dashboards for governance as well as internal and external compliance is a must.

Automation and business logic abstraction such that even a novice can fulfill the task in the absence of a senior executive is fast becoming a necessity in view of the dynamic business scenario.

Shorter turnaround time to ensure customer satisfaction as well as reduce claim leakage and improve accuracy is another driver for a digital insurance platform.

Growth in scope and reach following mergers and acquisitions and different acquired operating systems introduce disconnects and technical debt in the insurance processing.

6 Tips to improve productivity in Insurance Processing

Here are some tips and tricks to automate the Insurance Process Management Lifecycle and improve productivity and efficiency:  

1. Use Intelligent Document Processing or Intelligent Data Capture to auto-capture details from customer and vendor onboarding documents, KYC papers, claims processing papers, etc. The data is captured accurately and incorporated in the core system.
2. Engage RPA bots to synchronize data between different systems so that repetitive entry of the same data is eliminated and overheads are reduced. Reduce technical debt as well as improve productivity and efficiency of the entire insurance processing value chain.
3. Incorporate workflows to facilitate approval mechanisms and ensure faster turnaround times even in multi-step and multi-team underwriting and insurance claim processing.
4. Use Enterprise Content Management systems to store the digitalized paper work and cases for seamless collaboration and execution. Ensure a unified view across each and every policy, claim processing, and case management.
5. Leverage Cloud, either on-premise or hybrid, to host business systems for anytime anywhere access, reduce operational costs, and improve efficiency.
6. Incorporate Analytics layers and AI/ML algorithms to improve decision making during underwriting and claims management. Build dashboards to have a bird’s eye view of the claims processing, reduce operational costs, and stay within budget.

Business benefits of Digital Technologies in the Insurance domain

A digital insurance processing platform offers multiple business returns. The digital platform: 

• Provides a highly accurate output in a controlled workflow management, which facilitates seamless inter-team collaboration as well as auditing
• Standardizes workflows, improves visibility, and reduces operational expenditure
• Reduces swivel chair operations, reduces technical debt, and improves productivity
• Provides crisp business insights with actionable items
• Improves team responsiveness and turnaround time of claims processing
• Reduces leaks in claim management as well as claim backlogs
• Offers a high amplitude to scale up during workload peaks due to massive calamities, such as pandemics and natural disasters
• Provides the ability to quantify SLAs, KPI, and RoI

In summary

Insurance is a paper-intensive and process-driven services sector with high overheads resulting in increased operational expenditure. A digital insurance processing platform eliminates the over the top operational expenditure as well as improves productivity and efficiency in the entire value chain. 

Next reading

• Selecting the Right Processes for Robotic Process Automation & Optimizing RoI
• The A-Z of Intelligent Document Processing And Why It Is More Than Just OCR
• How Artificial Intelligence transforms the Robotic Process Automation landscape to make it more productive
• Rebound faster, stronger, and better with the ECM-powered Digital Workplace