The automation trends transforming inefficient operations

The value of ever greater levels of automated operations is gaining wider acceptance in the insurance sector.

But just as firms embrace a new technology, the opportunities broaden again with the next advance.

Hugh Pelling, senior client manager at Blue Prism Cloud, outlines the trends to watch at the forefront of this limitless digital landscape ahead of taking part in the Intelligent Insurer webinar ‘Intelligent Automation - Transform Inefficient Operations: Leverage Intelligent Automation to Drive Efficiency, Agility and Performance’, on May 14, 2020.

Question: What are the big trends you’re looking forward to discussing in the webinar?
Hugh Pelling (HP): The vast majority of organisations are trying to reduce their cost centres associated with claims management. Within that they are also focused heavily on reducing fraud, be it underwriting fraud or claims fraud. That’s something I’d like to explore with the webinar panellists and see how they’re meeting those challenges.

Q: What other areas of automated operational transformation are you working on?
HP: Automation through digital workers will bring greater efficiency for insurers. For example, post-call wrap-up administrative tasks conducted by people in a contact centre could be handed straight over to a digital worker. This removes the administrative burden from the agent, reduces errors and increases efficiency in customer service. Once an agent is liberated from having to do post sale or post renewal and wrap-up admin they can go onto the next call. There’s a breadth of benefits from improved interactions for customers and an improved working environment for the agent, as well as a reduced cost for the insurers.

Q: What technology is behind your platform?
HP: The Blue Prism Cloud platform brings together robotic process automation (RPA), AI capabilities such as natural language processing (NLP), lifecycle management tools and orchestration, as well as communication channels such as chat bots and web forms. Because it’s delivered in the cloud, there’s no infrastructure needed. These elements working together mean that an enterprise can use one digital workforce across departments and even regions.

Q: Why is a greater move towards intelligent automation so important for insurers in the future?
HP: The challenge for most organisations is being able to resource different business functions with different skills at the right time to manage workload variations. One area that demonstrates this is the claims function. For example, when Typhoon Hagibis disrupted the Rugby World Cup in Japan in October 2019, most insurers in affected lines faced huge spikes in claims.
Whether it’s a typhoon or a pandemic as we are currently experiencing, insurers often need to be able to resource a spike in claims immediately against predefined service level agreements. They’ve got to control the cost of claims while maintaining a high level of customer service. As we come out of lockdown and COVID-19, this idea of an augmented workforce is going to help organisations fill that workload gap even more.

Q: What is the next big intelligent automation advance for operations?
HP: Operations cover a wide range of functions but there’s significant potential to create efficiencies in claims and underwriting. Intelligent automation helps to transition use of automation from back-office processes to the front office.
One example is working on the first notice of loss (FNOL) aspect of a claim. We’re looking at how we can contain and speed up that function especially within the motor line. There’s opportunity to manage electronic-FNOL with automation as insurers are releasing apps that individuals or claimants can use to start a claim from the site of an incident. The virtual workforce can manage some of that claims activity. For example, it can interpret crash information in terms of the type of impact, the value of the car, photographic evidence. Then it can call on legacy data around that type of vehicle, that type of impact, that value of vehicle to determine what action should be taken next. A potential same-day decision could eliminate some of the costlier elements of managing that claim and settle payment much faster.

The webinar will take place tomorrow, May 14th at 3pm GMT/10am ET – but if you can’t make this time, sign up in advance and you’ll automatically receive the webinar recordings.

Click here to register now

More than 400 senior executives have already signed up to this free webinar on driving efficiency, agility and performance with intelligent automation. This is your last chance to tune-in and find out how to transform inefficient operations to tackle unsustainable expense ratios and create meaningful work in the age of automation. Hugh Pelling will be joined by Bradley O’Connor, head of operations technology, Beazley, Silvi Wompa Sinclair, group head of portfolio underwriting, Swiss Re and Richa Joshi, global practice head - Business Transformation Solutions, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty.