Digital technology has catapulted the world into a whirlwind of innovation and efficiency. Two whirlwinds in fact: one is the acceleration of tech; two is the acceleration of consumer expectation driven by that tech. What used to be extraordinary rapidly becomes ordinary. A luxury becomes a necessity becomes a right!
In the insurance world, technology should be the driver of operational efficiency by keeping up with consumer expectations but also removing unnecessary time, manual processing, hassle and cost from the business of processing policies and settling claims.
The principles behind claims management haven’t really changed in 100 years. Test for valid cover and a valid claim, settle (or very often with home and motor, repair or replace). Usually this was done with claim forms and more latterly claims calls. Policyholders, conditioned by recent decades of dial-a-claim, accepted that ‘that’s just how you make a claim’.
When digital did arrive for claims, it led to one predominant outcome. Insurers focused on IT implementations with some deep-rooted original principles in mind. It was a case of make the old digital rather than using the opportunity to switch up processing and handling to match the innovations that have driven retail in particular. In effect, digital should have been a chance to rewrite the script and drive extraordinary operational efficiency through the claims process by designing out fraud, rekeying, manual handling, and human-tied processing.
Now, consumers have the Amazon era of service. Trust in online and digital services has reached an all-time high and, in the blink of an eye, consumer behaviour and expectations has been reconditioned. The now-typical levels of expectation management —along the lines of ‘your parcel has left… is nearly there... is there... has been delivered… how was it?‘ —have been imported into all digitally capable consumer sectors. Claimants suddenly WANT to go online. They do not expect delay or hassle but instant notifications at every step, and taking their own claim actions through different channels and times as suits them.
This rapid change comes with a certain bittersweet taste. Bitter for many insurers because change and transform are usually linked at board level with one key word – cost. Sweet because, done properly, it opens the door to a new level of automation and efficiency for claims management right in-line with what digital tech has done to other industries.
So now we move to the huge question that insurers need to ask themselves. Do they try and force their current IT infrastructure (that isn’t up to true digital) into a compromised position, potentially digging a deeper hole? Or… do they start the Herculean task of designing, building and implementing a new hard-coded system. The latter of course assuming that no more change will occur in the next few decades (ha ha ha!)
However, there is a third way that many of the world’s leading insurers are already embarked on. Fully embracing a new type of digital technology that can put flexibility and agility at the heart of the operation.
Historically, flexibility has been at the expense if scalability and efficiency. But no-code technology is fast becoming as transformational in claims management as it was in the web building industry.
A new wave of agile insurers – energised by no-code digital claims – are reaping the rewards of exceptionally high customer satisfaction scores, record retention rates and deflating operations expenses. How? The simplicity is in the configuration and updating of such systems. Practitioners and experts within the business, rather than the IT department or external software providers, can spec their ideal customer claims journeys — with every nuance captured in complex rule sets— knowing that this can be configured and implemented in days, weeks or months. The game has changed.
Building complex systems that are perfect for the modern claims journey and customer expectations is similar to building a tricky model from LEGO. The key is in the design and spec with no need to worry if the bricks will fit together. Because they always will.
Modern nutritionists often say that we should avoid eating foods where we don’t understand the ingredients. The same could be said of insurers with systems. If you can’t look at what you’ve built and grasp how it all fits together, what drives each process and how to change it all easily if customers change, then perhaps you have the wrong system. Perhaps you could find yourself getting stuck.
360Globalnet’s multi-award-winning no-code digital claims technology could be the answer you are looking for. Not only does it suit an ever-evolving future, it completely de-risks the transition to digital infrastructure and services. This is because a by-product of its flexibility and configurability is that it can be implemented inline with appetite. Starting with FNOL for one peril for example, working with and wrapping around existing legacy before spreading out to all aspects of the claims operation.
If you’d like to find out more about our no-code digital claims technology, get in touch today. Further, we are sponsoring ITC Las Vegas next week from the 20th to 22nd of September 2022. We’ll be providing demos every hour and a half during the entire event – feel free to come and see us to experience the power of no-code digital claims management first hand.
