Adaptability: Deep-dives
Rory Yates
Exco | Chief Strategy Officer | Adaptability, Responsibility, Transformation, Technology, Leadership
The claims model is changing - about time too!
The end game is transformational
The challenge, should you choose to accept it, isn't mission impossible.
The biggest challenge with achieving an end-to-end digital claims experience is time and capital. However, doing it and achieving a meaningful ROE isn't the challenge anymore.
Transformation is hard in any form (see Ema Roloff for tips on how to ease this problem). No one in insurance claims is sitting around with time to spare, as far as I can see. And the organisational implication of building an end-to-end claims ecosystem is transformational. So it will be hard, and you will need your people’s time.
The term “ecosystem” is important here. Digitising the front-end processing of claims is one thing. But the real shift is when various partnerships bring specialist value into each aspect of the claims process. EFNOL providers, repair networks, and data services, providing personalised choice back to the customer turns the experience from insurer-led to customer-led.?
It's also vital that to be more digital in claims, you need to be more human. Optimizing for customer choice, and proactively providing the right human touch-points at the right time is essential.?
Digital technologies are as much an enabler of these human-to-human moments as they are in providing “digital” experiences. This fusion delivers the best results. It’s where your cost per claim goes down and your tNPS goes up, which is a good indicator you’re in the right place. You can have your cake and eat it!
Data-based relationships
This is about relationships and experiences, fueled by data.
Data is at the heart of everything, but it has to be fluid, accessible, and actionable. And often in insurance it isn’t. Just ask Lisa Wardlaw for her views on the dynamic insurance business models of the future.
You’re often having to identify yourself as a policy number and not as a universal customer, you can’t access and see your claims hoping between then next. And in the background the insurer is often trying to pull off the “Swan trick” - but instead lots of business rules, data suppressions and sticky tape is all trying to hang together to create the illusion of a claim under control.?
Data needs to be seen as a perishable asset, so time is of the essence. In the modern legacy world, insurers find themselves in, data is siloed and bottlenecked. It can't flow. For that to happen, insurers need to put the customer, not the policy at the heart of the business.
Once this shift takes place, and it’s coming, the following will be the norm, not the exception.
The broker gets the customer to the product that best meets their needs at the best value possible, because the insurer provides intelligent options, making the process seamless.?
The insurer supplies the “policy” and supports the broker and their customer in understanding the product, the service, and the onboarding process.?
The insurer keeps both engaged, pays commissions, and takes payments. The customer experiences a loss or damage and makes a claim through the digital services they've been made familiar with. The broker is informed and engaged.?
The repair network is engaged and orchestrated through the same experience, providing similar levels of experience-continuity through “white labeled” services. The insurer orchestrates this, and all parties are constantly engaged and therefore informed. It all exists in a transparent and multi-channel experience that meets the customers needs. As required, customers move seamlessly between calls, apps, and websites with ease.?
The process is made as painless as possible. The customer feels they have understood the whole process. They were given choices, and their overall satisfaction is good. The broker is happy, and sells more and more of the product to other customers as they see the “value”.?
Everyone is happy.
All of this is possible. We do it today. But this isn't at all common in insurance. The time to get here is now, and the shift is coming.
People like Paul Whiskin Ellen Kay , Jason Thackeray , Cole Hoitsma , Alex Templeman can all walk through this with ease. The challenge is always in the collision between customer experience goals, business processes and technology.
The human touch
The best experiences are the ones where customers are constantly kept informed, they can access their status and choices when and how they want, and that the whole experience is joined up. No clunky handoffs to third parties. No sudden drops in data or services as the customer moves between channels. They feel they're kept in the loop and in as much control as possible.?
The best experiences are the ones where customers are constantly kept informed, they can access their status and choices when and how they want, and that the whole experience is joined up.
The trick is achieving this for different customers means different things, and to make it work really well, high degrees of personalisation are needed. All too often in insurance we think of personalisation in things like “recognising” the customer, and reflecting some of their traits in the digital experience.?
Instead, the really important aspect of personalisation is putting the customer in control of the channels they interact with, and where possible, using AI or data models to recognise certain behaviours to proactively ensure the best options are used for that customer.?
From courtesy calls when claims experience stretches as this often increases stress levels, through to important email updates, or useful prompts to speed things up. Simple things that are currently hard to do make all the difference.
2022, in my own claims experience for a non-fault car collision in a car park, the experience was very different. The FNOL experience was digital. After that, I was lost in a void. No communication from the insurer. No status digitally available. And no way of getting to a real person unless I had two hours to spare on a call-waiting experience with some of the worst, repetitive royalty-free music available.?
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I was incessantly phoned by garages, who asked me to DPA qualify myself, and then after asking a lot of questions (all provided in the FNOL process). Then they'd then tell me that they couldn’t fix the car. After eight of these experiences, I eventually got a garage booking for eight weeks in the future. This process alone took more than 12 weeks. The body damage was minor and the claim was against another driver who admitted fault.
The sad news is, this isn’t unusual, and I was left asking if this really the 2020s!
Curtis Goldsborough there has got to be a meme in this!!
The future
Digital claims ecosystems are evolved, not built. Insurers built on the right foundations, MACH architected, built around the customer not the policy, highly extensible and able to orchestrate 3rd-party experiences are all capable of the sorts of evolving towards the sorts of experiences needed to make claims better.
Collaboration is vital in claims, and insurers can’t do it alone.?
I tend to think a clear sign insurers have moved into their ecosystem futures is when we hear examples of how they’ve gone out to their suppliers or new insuretechs and said you come in and tell me how you add more value to me and my customers.?
This call to action is a sign of proper collaborative behaviour, and that they know there’s no barriers to data fluidity and availability or extendibility and experience orchestration.
A strong example of this is in fraud. Fraud reduction and optimised experience management is now typically initiated pre-policy and then throughout the lifecycle. From integrating and sharing with the Fraud Bureaus to using intelligent fraud detection capability there’s huge ROI to be gained. It not only helps detect and manage the fraudsters, but this has long-term benefits in costs, and ultimately makes the prices and experience better for the good people.?Speak to Matt Gilham if you want to unpack this!
Our own product shows huge improvement in detection rates and orchestrating the experiences. Similarly, our clients' engagement across a range of fraud and claims optimisation services brings huge value. With typical integration levels in this space exceeding five new integrations in the first 18 months.
This vision is centered around exceptional, self-sufficient, and fully digital customer experiences, making the full life-cycle more consumer-friendly and flexible. But this is usually constrained by rigid legacy or modern legacy technologies.
Instead, we look to support insurers who want to:
The technology is there, the willingness and motivation in the industry is reaching a tipping point.
Claims transformation is set to benefit everyone. It’s the moment of truth for customers, and this could be the moment where we see the competitive paradigm for insurance change as well.
An erudite explanation of how the technologies are available for those with the vision, strategy, and buy-in of all participants in claims and collaborative technology partners. Plus stamina and courage to see it through.
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10 个月Rory Yates I love the deep dive (and I subscribed)! When you write about digitising the front end of claims - the FNOL bit - and then tell your personal tale of woe as you suffer through the inadequacy and inefficiencies of the claims process, I see an industry theme: Digitalization vs Digital Transformation. You’ve inspired a new game which I’ll post about shortly and tag you for full credit ????????