AI can help insurers show more empathy to customers: omni:us

Insurers that can show more empathy to their customers, especially in relation to the claims journey, will steal a march on their rivals – and artificial intelligence (AI) could be the key to making this a reality.

That was the main theme of a presentation held at the Intelligent Automation in Insurance event being held in London today (Tuesday May 21) called ‘Leverage AI To Cultivate Empathy And Improve Customer Experience In The Claims Journey’, sponsored by omni:us.

In the presentation Souhail Debaghi, director of business development UK, omni:us, said that a number of companies outside the insurance industry have led the way on this and proved that showing empathy to customers can be extremely effective.

“Consumer behaviour is changing and the companies that have been able to deliver their products and services in a way their customers want them have done very well. There are lessons we can learn from that,” Debaghi said.

He said that there are insurtechs operating now that are looking to use technology to achieve a similar result in insurance and these are gaining traction. But there is also a long way that the industry still needs to go.

He explained that omni:us is a technology company that develops artificial intelligence for the insurance industry. Specifically, it is developing AI to help insurers achieve more empathy in their interactions.

“Empathy is the ability to show someone you understand their emotions so it may seem strange to suggest that AI can achieve that. But being empathetic is also about showing your customers you value their time, understand them and communicate transparently and time efficiently,” he said.

“We believe AI can be trained as a virtual employee for insurers especially on the claims side of things to offer customers a more empathetic experience.”

He said the company is helping insurers move from being process driven to being data driven. "Automation is the low hanging fruit and we have developed AI to focus on data sensitive tasks unlocking data that has historically been quite difficult to unlock. That allows insurers to use that data to drive decisions around how to process a claim and also give a more on demand customer experience.”

He said the key to the process is making more data available to claims handlers in a way that makes sense and helps them make better decisions. To process unstructured or big data, the use of AI is critical and can help insurers achieve empathy on the customers’ claims journey.