Insurers Must Rethink Digital Process

I’d like to share a recent Insurance Networking News article. According to the piece, when insurers need to “step up their digital investments,” many are unclear how to redesign processes and implement digital alternatives. The author states: “Today’s mature insurance companies have literally hundreds of existing IT systems and applications to manage, and with those systems, thousands of processes, so simplifying processes across those systems represents a major management challenge.” With this reality, it’s no surprise insurers need to quickly determine their future digital path to remain competitive.

The article focuses on several key areas where digitization has helped insurers significantly reduce cost, such as policy servicing, application processing and sales and claims. However, there is room to further expand cost savings through digitization. The author notes that “Insurers typically determine their digital path based on business drivers where the ultimate goal is to increase efficiency and effectiveness in processes, productivity, quality and delivery.”

The article also cites a Bain & Company report, Global digital Insurance Benchmarking Report 2015. I agree with Bain’s recommendation that one of the key areas for insurers to start assessing a need for digitization is to establish a clear roadmap to determine how to sequence certain initiatives and how to organize for them. “Digital technology does not just support and automate internal processes; rather, it’s deployed to accommodate customers’ priorities in ways that can actually delight people,” note the report’s authors. “Incentives and processes also must align with the goal of providing customers with a superior experience.”

If you’re interested in learning more about digitization and the process of developing a roadmap, feel free to visit the Insurance Services page of our website, which offers insights on industry best practices as well as case histories, whitepapers and more.