When it comes to adopting the latest technology, the insurance industry is widely regarded as a laggard. Until recently, few insurer-developed social, cloud or mobile-first apps even existed. Now, bots are wining ground; customer-facing applications are popular because that’s where both revenue and customer experience stem from.
The advent of robotic process automation (RPA or “bots”) appears to have captured the attention of leading insurers across segments, putting the industry on an even footing with other sectors other than financial services. While life and specialty lines carriers are still evaluating the technology from afar, property and casualty insurers are increasingly piloting and engaging in widespread bot deployments in the areas of claims, policy processing and underwriting.
Quicker processes with bots
It’s easy to see why. A recently published report in Venture Beat reveals how chatbots can settle insurance claims in just three seconds. The Digital Insurer estimates that 80% of all underwriting will be handled by bots in the not-too-distant future. And GeekTime reported in 2017 on five promising chatbots for insurance.
Avoiding manual work and augmenting human capabilities is key to effective automation. Few available tools are better at avoiding manual work than intelligent bots, which explains why a growing number of insurers are considering RPA deployments across the industry.
Automation to transform?
Obviously, customer-facing applications are popular because that’s where both revenue and customer experience come from. But there are other applications as well that deliver cost savings, operational efficiencies, improved turnaround time and better decision making.
The real question then becomes: are insurers using automation to just do things better and faster, or are they really trying to transform and strengthen how they do business? In our experience, the answer is a mix of both, and here you can read about the four critical factors you need to consider.
