The insurance industry is not immune to the ever-changing digital landscape. But creating efficiencies with insurance automation is not as simple as it sounds. Or is it? The automation process is a natural progression in the insurance industry. And, the only way the insurance industry continues to grow is by reducing, removing, and replacing time-consuming and redundant processes within their workflow.
From raters and PDF readers to submission and claims software and fully customized solutions, insurance businesses are looking for ways to make their insurance processes more efficient. As technology continues to evolve and businesses adapt, insurance companies like independent agencies, national wholesale brokerages, and technologies like agency management systems must adjust to these changes by investing in new technology.
What Does it Mean to Automate Insurance?
To automate insurance means you create a process (often with a computer program) that electronically performs insurance tasks to make them more efficient and cost-effective. It’s a great solution for high-volume tasks, repetitive tasks, or tasks that are not customer-facing.
Three expected outcomes (in addition to creating efficiencies) when you automate insurance processes are technological transformation, decreased processing time, and improved customer service.
Technological Transformation
Customers are investing in technology in their personal lives and expect the companies they do business with are investing in technology too. Legacy systems and processes aren’t flexible enough for companies to keep up with the rapidly changing insurance technology market. And people want alternatives to slow, time-consuming, and tedious tasks.
Many of the insurtech solutions on the market now support the existing human roles in the insurance universe, making it easier for independent agents, wholesalers, and even carriers to achieve a near-seamless transformation. By finding and implementing technology that creates efficient processes, companies can transform their business. And the companies that embrace digital transformation are going to outgrow and outperform the competition.
Decreased Processing Time
When was the last time you waited patiently for your computer to dial-up and connect to the internet? For some, they don’t even know what that means. But for those that do, the answer is a long time. Just like technology sped up the process of connecting to the internet, technology can speed up the process of managing submissions and claims.
The days of waiting weeks for a claim or policy to be reviewed and approved are long gone. When you automate insurance processes like evaluating claims or submissions, you increase customer satisfaction, bind and retention rates, and improve the overall mental well-being of your employees.
Improved Customer Self-Service
Insurance automation goes beyond simplifying the process or workflow for insurance companies. There is a rise in technology being created and implemented in the insurance industry to increase customer relationships and perceptions of companies.
“Customer service automation is a customer support process that reduces human involvement in solving customer inquiries. Businesses achieve automated customer service using self-service resources, proactive messaging, or simulated chat conversations (Nextiva).” As an example, a technology company just released an AI chat service called ChatGPT that reached 1 million subscribers in the first week.
When companies invest in technology and automate insurance processes, they create efficiency. Increased efficiency helps drive down costs, makes growth scalable, reduces human error, and improves morale. And. with an automated system, insurance providers can offer more competitive pricing and a better customer experience.
Use Cases for Automating Insurance Processes
In recent years, we have seen many industries like healthcare, banking, and insurance adopting technology and investing in automation. Automation has been a great help in reducing the burden of repetitive tasks on humans and increasing the speed and accuracy with which they do business.
One of the most common ways insurance automation can be used is when it comes to submissions, underwriting, policies, and claims.
Submissions
Technology solutions like a submission management platform (SMP) can help agents and wholesalers manage their submissions in a single place. Wheelhouse by Talage is a commercial submission management platform. By leveraging an SMP you can make the process of quoting and submitting applications, and processing renewals simple.
Underwriting
Many of the tasks associated with underwriting, such as data collection, loss runs assessment, claims history review, and updating internal systems are slow and manual. By implementing technology to automate these processes, the insurance industry can gain increased speed and accuracy in the underwriting process.
Policies
Policy management is ripe for automation technology. Once a policy is issued, various systems need updating. This can be tedious and very manual. By connecting systems together with software that talks to one another (e.g., API), much of the manual tasks associated with policy management can be automated.
Claims
The ways companies process and manage claims are paramount to the success and overall efficiency of the company. Typically, it can take days or even weeks for agents to process a claim. Especially if they don’t have access to technology that can speed up these processes. By employing insurance automation software that helps speed up the claims process, companies can eliminate friction and increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Elements of Great Insurance Automation Solutions
Automation can help businesses to “get things done” faster and more efficiently, leading to cost savings and increased productivity. When bringing on a commercial insurance automation submission solution you should consider how it will work for you long-term and create more efficiency in your organization.
Agility
The first thing to look for in an insurance automation solution is agility. From carrier updates and bug fixes to new features and security, the solution should be powerful enough to handle your business needs and be able to adapt quickly and easily to changes in the business environment.
Scalability
One of the biggest challenges for any insurance business is to manage the cost of its operations. This is where an automation solution comes in handy. The key to successful insurance automation is scalability. And, it’s not just about the number of policies being handled but also the time taken to process a policy. Whether you have a few submissions and claims or thousands, you need an automation solution that can accommodate your flow of business. This means that you need a solution that can handle millions of policies without slowing down or crashing.
Flexibility
The solution should also be flexible enough to work for companies of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. Flexibility in the software will allow it to be used in a variety of scenarios. This is necessary because different insurance businesses will have different needs and requirements. And as they grow and change, each company may need to use the software differently.
Customizable
The insurance industry is rapidly changing, and it is becoming more and more difficult for insurance businesses to keep up with the changes. In order to stay competitive, agents and wholesalers need to find ways to automate as much of their work as possible. And customization is a key feature insurance automation solutions should possess. The more customization options there are, the easier it will be for the company to find a solution that suits them best.
Integrate with other systems
In the insurance industry, there is a lot of data that needs to be analyzed and processed to provide the best possible customer experience. One of the main goals for insurance businesses should be to streamline their operations and reduce costs. However, this can be difficult without the right technology in place.
Companies should look for an automation solution that will integrate with many (if not all) of their systems, such as billing, submission management, claims management, and customer relationship management (CRM). This will ensure that all data is collected and companies will not have to manually enter data into multiple systems. Connecting these systems also means it will be easier to see the big picture as well as generate reports or analyze data.
Benefits of Insurance Automation
The use of automation in the insurance industry has been on a steady rise over the last few years. And the benefits of insurance automation are numerous. The most obvious is the efficiencies the software creates like saving time and money for both the agent and the customer.
It also provides a better customer experience by delivering faster quotes/binds, with less waiting time on hold. It has higher rates of accuracy, can provide seamless integration with payment processing, and increase claims intake. Finally, the greatest benefit of software that helps you automate insurance processes is access to data.
Automate Insurance Submissions for Commercial
The process of submitting commercial insurance can be a time-consuming and tedious task. For example, you have to speak with the client, fill out the paperwork, submit the client’s information to multiple systems, wait to get quotes from different providers, create a document that’s easy for your clients to review, and then wait for your client to make a decision.
Automating this process can save you a lot of time and money. Imagine this process taking about 10 minutes – whether you start the application or the client does. From the application start to quote review, a client can see what their premium is for multiple carriers. You’ve done little to no data entry and best of all, the client isn’t hopping from one agent to another trying to get the best price.
Automating your insurance submissions can also help you make better decisions. Technology takes the guesswork out of the equation. With the right submission management platform, you get access to data and reports that help you understand your commercial business. From knowing which industries you’re doing the most business with to understanding which carriers quote (and which do not), you have the data you need at your fingertips to make business decisions or to provide insight to carriers when they want to know why you aren’t writing more business with them.
The insurance industry is one of the most conservative industries in the world. But with new technologies, it’s becoming more and more possible to automate many of the workflows, creating efficiencies in the processes that are typically done manually.
Insurance automation software is an opportunity for insurance professionals to leverage this new technology to improve their workflows, increase customer loyalty, and make growing their business simple. The next step is to figure out where you want to go with your automation and start implementing it in your insurance business
Wheelhouse is the Submission Management Platform for Commercial Insurance
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