"No longer can the business be hostage to the IT department or the insurance software vendor who tell business stakeholders it will take six months and a million dollars to launch a modest digital claims initiative. Or twelve to twenty-four months and $10 million to digitally transform the whole motor or home claims operation."
Paul Stanley CEO 360Globalnet Limited
With the advent of “Low-Code/No-Code” digital claims platforms that is no longer the case (however you will have to look hard to find the Insurance-oriented ones). Insurers should not be diverted by the urge to adopt AI, IoT and Blockchain at the expense of missing the biggest service improver and cost-reduction initiative out there.
Not only is this sort of technology an existential threat to current technology vendors but failure to appreciate the significance of handing the power to change back to the Business from traditional IT is ultimately an existential threat to the Insurer as the early adopters will drastically reduce their cost base. Therefore, the question truly is “to be or not to be”
There are important priorities insurers should be implementing now as if they do not they will be left behind by more adroit carriers and even new disrupters. I am not the only one as you see here: -
What do you see as the biggest disrupters because of technology in insurance?
Where the most disruption is actually going to occur is in an emerging category — low-code and no-code platforms”
Kevin Gregson, Global Leader, Commercial and Client Development, Willis Towers Watson Nov 2018
In a similar vein, Aldwych capital has announced a $40million investment in Decisions to help grow its workflow automation and business rules engine and products. This makes the $45million we have already invested in the Low code-No Code digital Claims Platform 360Siteview seem even more prescient than I originally thought. Having now digitally processed over 3.6 million claims worldwide we are leading the area where most disruption needs to happen
Cases studies are always informative so let’s have a look at some…. .
One motor manufacturing customer needed to implement a vehicle recall program and within days the whole process of digitally enabling online reporting and booking remedial work linking dealers, vehicle-hire and all the other parties involved was ready. In two weeks thereafter deployed in anger. All this process designed, built and implemented with no coding.
Another had started delivering a better FNOL experience to customers and extended this to the whole claims value chain. Lurking on its website however was an embarrassment- travel insurance which required the customer to download and PRINT a claims form and email it back! In a single day this was completely digitised using our no-code “Configurator” allowing customers to click on a simple online “Make a Claim” button which initiated a full end to end settlement process.
It is not untypical for new customers to have commenced a system build from scratch and within three months deployed digitally transformed motor and home insurance claims processing. All without having to replace expensive and complex core systems. This is the measure of an effective low code-no code digital claims platform. You should not be surprised that there is a singular lack of capability from established vendors as it takes a significant advanced investment, 3 years to complete and detailed Insurance claims knowledge to build to the optimum future state system.
Even more important it is the fact innovation requires constant improvement so a “Low code-No Code” claims platform is essential to let the business continuously iterate and improve service, process efficiency, claims cost (LAE) and anti-fraud. No more having an urgent requirement and then having to wait for developers to spec, code, deliver, change on realising they had misunderstood requirements, test and a long time later deploy. If claims handlers identify that customers are confused by a question, want to upload more than the four photos you allow, complain there are too many questions you need to be able to change the process today, test and release the improvement.
Which brings me to another aspect of “low code-no code” architecture. You can make changes if Customers, Agents/Brokers, Supply-chain and claim handlers provide anecdotal evidence but to excel you must have real-time analytics. Usually this is the preserve of data scientists and analysts who have a long list of priorities to attend to before they can help claims. 360Globalnet long ago provided its customers with self-service BI and Analytics including the ability to turn text-based documentation fully analysable.
Drag, drop, connect, access and analyse disparate and multiple data sources as the need arises, not when the IT department get around to it. The market and customer expertise is in the business so unless they can follow up hunches with fast analysis for actionable insights how can the business execute digital claims effectively? They cannot.
The future key IT design principles must include: -
- Total self-configuration of process by business users themselves online in a no-code environment
- That environment includes a comprehensive array of digital capability in one place to allow design, build and implementation of any process the business requires
- A re-imagining of the need for the traditional IT Dept in an age where the power to change is in the hands of the business itself – what is their role in the future?
If you are looking around trying to find this capability from established vendors you will not see it for a variety of reasons
- The status quo is lucrative as purchasing licences, maintenance and support is costly, allied to the need to employ external Consultants and support them with a large internal team in a major project.
- Existing technology is very difficult and cost prohibitive to upgrade,
- The only viable solution is to start from scratch which is a minimum 2-3 year build at great cost, whilst completely compromising the existing business model
- This is a “catch 22” situation
Stanley goes on to say "So where are we after 6 years of really hard work, a significant amount of investment and an unshakeable belief in the vision we set at the outset? Well despite personally aging 20 years in 10 and hoping to reduce working hours to a 80 per week we have a revolutionary digital online platform in 360Siteview which offers Insurers, Agents/Brokers, Loss Adjusters and others a paradigm shift in the cost of operating and cost control, whilst elevating service to retail online standards."
Links:
More information on our online claims management solution technology, 360SiteView, can be found here.
You can see more of our thoughts on disrupting legacy systems and going digital in this article.
More great articles and insights like this can be found here.
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