The occurrence of an accident represents a real highlight of his experience for an insured person. A “moment of truth” marked first and foremost by low-frequency relationships; in fact, the insured’s interactions with the insurer are rare and occur mainly during underwriting, at the time of payment of the contribution – i.e. regularly but delicately – and finally during a disaster – a very random and infrequent deadline. We are far from the almost daily interactions with your bancassurance provider, to consult your bank account balance on the mobile application or website. On the other hand, disaster also generates so-called high-intensity interactions, since the financial and emotional stakes that accompany this moment are high.
The accident is therefore a crucial moment for insurers, which crystallizes numerous issues. This is why transforming disaster management is a challenge in its own right. How is the relationship between insurers and customers evolving as a result of this dynamic of innovation in claims management? Does improving the claims experience also lead to an improvement in the customer experience? Is it possible to improve the customer relationship without changing the way claims are handled?
Claims management can no longer take place without the customer
In this case, an omnichannel strategy is absolutely recommended, in order to give all stakeholders who interact with an insured who is the victim of an accident the same visibility and the same level of information on the customer journey to guarantee rapid and efficient treatment, avoiding ask questions to insureds that have already been answered. A platform that allows you to bring together and share all the information with the teams involved, in an omnichannel approach, is the necessary tool to rely on, also to avoid moments in which the insured does not contact the right service and must be redirected.
Thanks to the omnichannel nature of the solutions, policyholders decide which channel best suits their needs, thus benefiting from a better customer experience and a better claims management procedure.
Thinking about the customer experience directly according to the insured’s expectations, and not according to the constraints of the management process, is the best possible approach. It allows for the greatest possible transparency and fluidity, while at the same time preventing customers from receiving untimely and unnecessarily reminders and from seeing errors appear among the information collected.
Choose a solution that fits the challenges
Patrick Soulignac, principal solutions consultant, Guidewire
The transformation problem facing insurers right now boils down to two main points: improving your CRM on the one hand and adopting an effective claims management solution on the other. Although they are very distinct, these two points also have commonalities and dependencies.
It is normal for insurers to ask themselves how to proceed, how to start, when to integrate the different building blocks and how to position themselves in the ongoing transformation journey.
The challenge here is to have an open claims management system, equipped with modern and secure APIs, in order to allow rich interaction with all the systems involved in the relationship with the customer: not only the spaces of the insured, but also the consolidated customer vision, the customer communication platform, etc.
Omnichannel has a counterpart: the openness of systems, giving rise to complex IT ecosystems. It is necessary to have good integration skills to provide policyholders with consistent and homogeneous information.
The emergence of the “augmented manager” thanks to artificial intelligence
To satisfy policyholders, the challenge for any insurer is to offer smooth and fast travel, with fast claims processing. Automation is the key to successfully combining technical excellence, reducing operational costs for the insurer and improving customer satisfaction rates. To do this, insurers must use artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to automate processes where possible, thereby improving technical quality and, consequently, customer satisfaction.
Artificial intelligence allows, for example, to guarantee anti-fraud verification of documents to regulate automated claims declaration procedures carried out online, which can give rise to cases of fraud. It provides managers with insights and guidance from available data to inform them about the potential level of fraud in a particular claim. We then speak of an “augmented manager”.
The keystone of insurers’ customer service is in fact the claim; the challenge is to be able to perfect its management and create a dynamic that impacts, directly and indirectly, on the experiences of the insured. This is in line with policyholders’ expectations in terms of speed of processing claims. The new measure to simplify the online cancellation of insurance contracts, in just three clicks, also goes in this direction. The claims experience could, thanks to AI innovation and other avenues of improvement, become a high-intensity time, while ultimately being easier for policyholders to live with.
Author: Patrick SoulignacLead Solutions Consultant, Guidewire
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