Page 45 - Insurance Times October 2020

contemplating on uberizing it to monetize by offering claims and technology philosophies of the insurer. This variance
adjuster as a service. For catering to the post-loss, insurers could be too complex for a technology like artificial
have traditionally created and operated an ecosystem. The intelligence that exhibits different capabilities and comprises
ecosystems are now becoming extensively digital, API- several methods. Hence, there are many ways to design a
driven, and cater to a whole gamut of services. business function and an insurer could instantiateit in a
unique way.
Emerging Technologies Reshaping Claims Considering the application and adoption of the most

Functions popular technology of telematics by insurers. Most of the
The growing technologies of convenience are enabling a insurers are using telematics in underwriting and risk
paradigm outside-in shift in the way processes are being assessment to offer premium discounts, analyze driver
redesigned. A digitally intensive transformation of the claims behavior, offer usage-based pricing and proactively engage
processes is enacted to increase the customer touch points, to shape the driving behavior. However, some insurers are
interactions, participation, and experience. The most extending the use of telematics data in claims functions to
popular technologies that are exploited are IOT and analyze the driving signature for identifying ex-ante moral
hazards, trigger an automated loss reporting post-accident
telematics in addition to algorithm dominated technologies based on the impact data, and to use the data as
such as machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural corroborative evidence for simulating the accident scene for
language processing (NLP). These are leading the pack for identifying the proximate cause and to ascertain if the
being extensively leveraged across the business processes accident could have been prevented.
in the claims value chain. However, when it comes to the
business processes, the maximum experiments and An insurer could tweak a business process slightly with the
implementations are seen in loss reporting, workflow, help of a certain technology or completely overhaul it with
investigation, prediction, estimation, and fraud detection. the confluence of many. For example, considering loss
intimation, which is the most popular use case that is being
A matrix depicting the emerging technologies and an redesigned with emerging technologies, an insurer could
indicative view of their experimentation or implementation partially or fully automate the processes from loss intimation
in the claim value chain is given below. to settlement based on factors such as frequency,
complexity, and severity. The decision by the management
on whether they want to build
a human-out-of-the-loop,
human-in-the-loop, or human-
on-the-loop process will be a
major factor in the redesign.

A complete reimagination of
the customer claims journey
digitally from loss intimation to
settlement would involve the
following technologies
orchestrating a symphony.

If an insurer chooses to provide
additional value-adds such as
offering roadside assistance,
identifying the best repairer
for each damage, providing
Figure 3: Emerging Technologies in Claims Function upfront settlement options for simple losses, or providing in-
kind settlement options for improvising customer
There are many ways in which a specific technology could experience, they will have to invoke several other
be used to redesign the claims processes. How an individual technologies in the process. In addition to core claims
technology or a mix of multiple technologies is leveraged is processes, insurers are also trying to experiment
always determined by the business, operations, customer technologies in functions such as workflow management,
The Insurance Times, October 2020