As technology innovations continue to redefine the insurance industry, firms are increasingly digitizing various operational aspects of their business to gain new and maintain existing competitive advantages. For many insurers, this comes down to improving the customer experience through the automation and improvement of internal processes—many of which may be manual, human-driven efforts. By leveraging the latest digital tools and technologies, insurance enterprises are better positioned to remain competitive; to this end, straight-through claims handling is becoming increasingly prevalent among insurance firms looking to improve their customer acquisition and retention rates in the face of rising competition
In this article, we’ll explore 5 ways that straight-through claims handling improves the customer experience, resulting in more new/repeat business and less churn.
What is Straight-through Claims Handling?
Straight-through claims handling enables insurance firms to automatically process claims without human intervention or activity. Because manual labor is avoided through automated processes and electronic transfers, issues such as extended/stalled claims processing and errors are reduced dramatically; in turn, insurers can offer their customers consistently faster and more convenient experiences.
AI/ML for Enabling Straight-through Claims Handling
For the customer, straight-through claims handling simply means faster, more responsive service during the claims handling process. For the insurer, a myriad of technologies come into play for reducing manually-driven tasks and extraneous human intervention. As an example, firms may implement AI/ML to automate various aspects of the claims process as well as organize claims data for faster processing.
In cases where crucial claims data is missing, AI-powered chatbots can be deployed to automatically reach out to parties for the missing information. AI/ML can also enable insurers to build more optimized models for rendering claims decisions by taking into account historical data from previous settlements and claims. By applying AI/ML algorithms to the claims handling process, insurance carriers can provide better outcomes and more accurate claims decision-making.
Big Data for Informing Automated Claims Handling
Digital innovations continue to remap the insurance landscape. By enabling the collection and processing of massive amounts of diverse and complex data (i.e., both structured and unstructured data) with more velocity, big data has transformed a myriad of insurance processes—from underwriting and pricing, marketing and sales, and account management and, of course, claims management.
5 Ways Straight-Through Claims Handling Improves the Customer Experience
Here are five ways straight-through claims handling can enable insurance firms to deliver more personalized, best-in-class customer experiences.
1. Scalable customer response capabilities and services
During extremely busy periods and spikes in claims activity, insurance firms saddled with manual processes and human-driven efforts may find themselves unable to meet customer demands for responsive communications and ultimately, timely claims settlements and closure. These negative experiences increase the risk of customers switching to another insurance carrier; subsequently, straight-through claims handling is crucial for helping insurance firms scale with their customers’ demands and expectations.
2. More accurate claims decisions and settlements
Because automated processes are integral to straight-through claims handling, manual data entry efforts and resulting input/processing errors are substantially reduced or even eliminated, resulting in reduced settlement risk and claims processing costs/overhead, not to mention a more streamlined claims and settlement process for the customer.
3. Better end-to-end claims handling transparency
Straight-through claims handling increases transparency and visibility by simplifying and streamlining the claims processing workflow. With little to no human intervention and/or custom handling involved, customers are more receptive to the claims handling process from end to end, leading to increased trust and enhanced customer relationships.
4. Faster claims processing and resolution
With straight-through claims handling, less complex cases and claims with basic information can be handled immediately and/or more promptly, moving the claims handling workflow along to meet or exceed the customer’s lead time expectations. With claims handling processes automated and shortened, customers retain a more positive user experience that will ultimately lead to more policy renewals and referrals.
5. Increased staff efficiency and productivity
Despite the technology-driven automation, insurance professionals are still a critical component of the enterprise; suffice to say, their efforts should be integrated where they count the most, not where excessive manual/repetitive work (e.g., validating information, collecting data, conducting research) may result in less staff productivity and ultimately, a negatively impacted customer experience. Straight-through claims management enables insurance carriers to instead apply human efforts to further personalize the customer experience.
Enhancing Customer Relationship and Customer Experience
In short, straight-through claims handling allows insurance enterprises to improve the customer experience by optimizing the business’ internal processes—specifically, by automating routine, human employee efforts and accelerating the end-to-end claims workflow. To learn more about how straight-through claims handling can enhance customer relationships and lead to more business, please download Ventiv Technology's Touchless Claims Whitepaper white paper today.
