Intelligent Automation can help insurers navigate the maze of unstructured information

The insurance industry is particularly ripe for Intelligent Automation (IA) given the high volume of unstructured information being received and processed by insurers, according to Mike Hobday, senior vice president at AntWorks.

Speaking at Intelligent InsurTECH Europe 2019 on October 14 in London, Hobday said modern insurance companies need to take RPA efforts to the next level with Intelligent Automation to conduct the level of enhanced analytics required to compete.

For insurers the pain point is ensuring they have accurate information about their customers, said Hobday. The goal is to extract this information from the documentation they have been provided as quickly and easily as possible. That means embracing Intelligent Automation.

“Insurers can’t manage how information is received,” explained Hobday. Using Intelligent Automation allows insurers to mine large amounts of unstructured documentation for the information they need, without passing the frustration of filling out forms to their customers, and without having to employ teams of human analysts to extract data themselves.

AntWorks’ Integrated Automation Platform ANTstein SQUARE can mine different types of documentation for relevant data and establish whether it is reading a policy document, legal correspondence or any other document type, based on the context. The data is cleaned and classified, the relevant data is extracted, validated and enriched, and then exported to where it is needed.

IA can do this faster and more accurately than humans, finding information that may be hidden in unexpected places. The technology is flexible enough that it does not matter whether providers structure their documentation differently.

Ben Platts, senior director, sales engineering at AntWorks, said: “There are hidden gems within the documents from which we can get the information we need. We are taking the routine out of work and getting at data that couldn’t previously be accessed.”

Commercial insurers, corporate life and claims teams deal with the largest volumes of unstructured data, and will therefore be among the greatest beneficiaries of this technology, said Platts.

But the technology will be applicable across the entire insurance industry, including insurance, reinsurance and shared services, he added.