Rekeying: a single word that covers a multitude of insurance sins. At 360Globalnet, we believe rekeying is the insurance Cluedo equivalent of the butler holding a bloodstained candlestick in the Library as insurers try to detect what's killing their Combined Operating Ratio.
Let's dig deeper and find out why.
Combined Operating Ratios (CORs) are probably the most important corporate metrics in insurance. The value of claims and expenses leaving the business vs premiums coming in.The COR shows, in a single stat, what you're losing from every £1, $1 or €1 coming in.
In the last decade, the goalposts for COR and other profit drivers have shifted dramatically. Reliance on risk-free revenue (from selling legal expenses and breakdown cover, say) has become increasingly dangerous territory given regulatory scrutiny. No-one wants to get burned if add-ons become the next PPI! And within the COR itself, underwriting is also a much harder place to eke out a competitive differential.
Why? Because the data gathering and analysis resources that sit beneath strong risk rating have been commoditised. Data is hard to horde but easy to sell these days, so underwriting information is necessarily shared by rival competitors who all have access to the professional services firms and actuaries to help them.
Add to this the fact that more and more important data is becoming public. Google has started publishing material such as information on the roads where people are braking more sharply. Underwriting alone can no longer cut it. So expense and claims ratios are displacing it as the profit Soup du Jour.
Rekeying is a drain on both ratios. It occurs when data from one system isn't automatically imported into another unless via human rekeying - an act prone to delay, error, bias and, most of all, information loss.
If you want to control claims costs, the only thing you need to analyse is... everything. But when systems are fragmented and don't talk or share without rekeying, the pool of data for effective analysis can drain away catastrophically. 'Jumper' claims, incubated claims, fraudulent claims all stand a great chance of being missed when claims data is rekeyed by people from one system to another or to a spreadsheet.
Efficiency in claims operations and FNOL hinges on taking information obtained directly from the customer during a digital claim and placing this directly into the core of the business using APIs rather than manual rekeying. What's more, this information can then immediately trigger business rules - such as sending visual claim data to repairers for quotes or appointment selections by the customer back to the repairer.
The result is internal and supply chain automation that works directly from the original data entry. The insurer configures what they want to happen in prescribed situations and these events occur not only without rekeying but without any human intervention in most cases. Even down to cash offers to customers and straight-through processing for simple claims.
Crucially the customer is informed at all stages taking care of those pesky phone calls and unnecessary admin that also kill the expense ratio. Customer service and retention in insurance hinges on speed and automatic notification but - when data is subject to rekeying between systems - delays that kill both can creep in.
By avoiding rekeying, insurers and customers get the best of both worlds: all the data where they want it... but with a digital overlay giving the service that's deserved (and now in an ‘Amazon’ world, expected!).
Finally, in terms of expenses, it is a killer for insurers to employ staff in dull repetitive jobs that cost them £ms. When those tasks hinge on rekeying between systems, inefficiency and rising indemnity costs are inevitable. People have an important part in claims - but it lies in empathy and intelligence, not rekeying.
At 360Globalnet, our digital claims platform is built on the basis of evidence gathering and integration that never needs to be rekeyed. A single complete view of every claim with pictures, videos and every jot of information. Managers don't need to see everything but they can analyse everything. Plus, no-one needs to schedule a time to let a customer know their case has changed. As the case changes, they are notified automatically.
Add to all of this 360Retrieve's ability to analyse every element of unstructured data that arrives in an insurer and the picture is complete.
Indemnity costs reduce with greater knowledge. Operational costs reduce with greater efficiency.
The results are key. And they rest in never rekeying.
If you'd like to find out how we're dramatically improving our clients' CORs then get in touch today. We'd be delighted to hear from you.
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