One of my favorite things about my role is the fact that I get to speak with leaders from various Fortune 500 companies about the problems they’re facing.
Whether it’s companies within financial services that need to better serve their small business customers, a large pharmacy chain trying to streamline its processes to improve overall operational efficiency, or a large insurance carrier trying to digitize its claims process–they’re all looking to do one thing: make each interaction for their staff and customers personalized and human.
I recently had the chance to join a panel featuring Laurie Pierman, vice president of claim operations at Amerisure, and Lori Pon, director of claim innovation and strategy at AAA. We discussed the challenges that insurance carriers are up against when it comes to automating their processes, and steps they can take to start modernizing without disrupting their organizations.
Read on to learn about the top five tips we discussed:
1. Start small
Similar to businesses across many verticals, insurance carriers struggle with not having enough resources, time, and money to tackle all of the innovation projects they’d like to. Due to regulatory constraints and legacy systems, the industry has been slower to adopt new technology. Now, carriers know they have to keep up, but don’t know where to start.
The best approach is from the outside in, not from the inside out. Think of a process that would create the greatest impact to your customers. Talk to your employees who speak with customers every day about what process they think should be updated. Maybe they’ll suggest digitizing part of your claims process, or changing the way you communicate policy updates; it doesn’t have to be a heavy lift.
Even if the data from your existing process ends up in Duck Creek, Guidewire, or older green screen technology, digitizing the front-end experience will make the overall process more accurate, intuitive, and personalized.
Multi-year ventures that only deliver value when they’re finished aren’t the right approach anymore. Customers are looking for an on-demand experience at every interaction. They’re no longer just comparing you to their neighbor’s insurance carrier; they’re comparing their experience with you to the one they get from companies like Amazon.
2. Get a seat at the table
Once you’ve identified the complex process you want to tackle, the next step is finding a vendor that can help you achieve your goal. You’ll want to work with a technology company that offers you a seat at the table.
Find a vendor you trust, that brings your company into its modernization roadmap and lets you influence how they develop their product. Also, ask if they’ll let you A/B test or take part in a soft launch as opposed to committing to a large project that will involve a lot of time and resources up front.
Typically, Insurtechs and other software vendors want to hear from carriers about the issues they’re facing and how they can help, so don’t just settle for an out-of-the-box solution.
3. Focus on the “right” touch
You’ll often hear the term “no touch” when it comes to digital transformations, but in insurance the modernization efforts can be different.
For example, filing a claim is usually a really emotional time for your customers, and (hopefully) an experience that they don’t go through often. Maybe they’d like to speak to a human on the other end of the phone, instead of a chatbot, or vice versa.
Find the right balance, and maybe even let the customer decide between human interaction and automation, so that they’re provided with an empathetic experience that is also seamless and intuitive.
4. Don’t forget your internal customers
Customers are often at the forefront of our digitization efforts. After all, they’re driving the revenue. However, it’s important for insurance carriers to remember their internal customers.
Your employees are the experts of your front line processes and they’re also hearing external customer feedback on a daily basis. They can highlight the pain points that exist for them and your customers in the current processes and suggest how they can be improved.
And, with the right tools, you can even empower them to make changes to their processes.
So, once you’ve decided on which technology solution you’d like to roll out, it’s important that you involve your employees. Make sure the, “What’s in it for me?” is clearly stated and understood, because new technology is only useful when your whole team is on board, and it’s adopted and implemented correctly.
5. Launch and learn
Insurance carriers, like most large enterprises, have a history of taking a long time to implement their technology roadmap. If you want to embrace agility and innovation, it’s important to realize that you can’t strive for perfection. There might be hiccups, but you’ll learn from your mistakes. And, if you’re implementing technology that allows you to be flexible, like a low-code process automation platform, you can pivot quickly and make improvements in days, if not hours.
When push comes to shove, adopting new ways of working in the insurance industry starts from the top down. It’s important to:
✔Empower your team
✔Embrace failure
✔Look for value along the way
When you’ve checked all of those boxes, you’ll have released something that provides immediate value to your organization and your customers.
