Page 21 - Insurance Times March 2021
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automated analytics in claims images or video, customer  Customers may also end up paying more for insurance
         voice, claims summary reports and so on. Cloud-based  because policies are not tailored for their unique needs. In
         predictive services leverage deep learning to train machine  an age when most of our daily activities are online, digitized
         learning-models on unstructured data sources like images,  and convenient, insurance is not always a happy customer
         texts, videos, and voice. These pre-trained models are then  experience. There would be a global push by insurance
         offered to insurers in an off the shelf package.     companies to augment their technological capabilities so
                                                              that they can do business faster, cheaper and more securely.
         Product Gaps: A product gap is created when new      In the past few years, there have been some prominent
         technologies, changing lifestyles and changing business  examples of insurers investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence
         models create new risks or new ways                  solutions.
         of addressing old risks. Start-ups in the
         wider world of IoT (the Internet of
         Things) are offering usage based
         insurance (UBI) solutions such as
         telematics for motor and health
         insurance leveraging a wide range of
         machine learning algorithms to
         normalize and analyze the big data
         which is generated every second. Start-
         ups supporting agricultural insurance
         operations use weather and crop data
         collected through satellites, drones and
         weather monitoring stations. ML
         algorithms are used to normalize and
         analyze this data.

         Customer     Interaction   Gaps:                     IMAGE 3- Reasons for adopting AI.
         Emerging technologies have changed customer behaviours  Artificial Intelligence has shown its substance in various
         and expectations. This creates a gap in customer-facing  business verticals by rapidly creating controlled, digitally
         insurance operations such as distribution, policy servicing,  enhanced automated environments for maximum
         and claim settlement. NLP based machine learning     productivity. Apparently, Insurance companies, in particular,
         techniques are enabling chatbots to understand customers'  have a lot to gain from investing in AI-enabled technology
         queries. Then, SAI based rules are employed to find  that can not only automate the scheduling of executive-level
         appropriate answers to their queries. SAI is enabling online  tasks but can also enrich service quality by helping agents
         or app-based distribution platforms to recommend the most  make right decisions and irrefutable judgments.  Insurance
         suitable insurance products quickly by asking an intelligently-  companies are striving for a technologically advanced system
         ordered minimum set of questions. Machine learning-based  that helps keep all their employees synchronized. These
         algorithms then predict the purchase preferences of the  employees vary from agents, brokers, claim investigators to
         given customer and appropriately customize the insurance  market and support team. These group of employees
         offering.                                            coupled with redundant processes create layers of confusion
                                                              in Insurance ecosystem. To make the system more refined
         AI in Insurance:                                     and efficient, they should opt for stable and consistent AI-
                                                              powered solutions that can penetrate the layers of confusion
         Insurance is an old and highly regulated industry. Perhaps  and propel clear value proposition towards customers.
         because of this, insurance companies have been slower to
         embrace technological change compared to other industries.  How are Insurance Companies Imple-
         Insurance is still steeped in manual, paper-based processes
         that are slow and require human intervention. Even today, menting Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
         customers are faced with time-consuming paperwork and  Insurers are using AI to provide better, faster and cheaper
         bureaucracy when getting a claim reimbursed or signing up  services to customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become
         for a new insurance policy.                          a buzzword in the insurance industry. Still, the industry has

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