Automation may be your best defense against talent shortage & recession

The property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry is facing unprecedented challenges in the form of talent shortage, high inflation, and an increasingly challenging economic environment. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is uniquely positioned to address these challenges, providing a solution that reduces manual efforts and repetitive tasks and saves money.

Talent shortages are the result of lower insurance industry employment entry rates among younger workers and an aging population transitioning into retirement. As the available talent pool continues to shrink, companies must find ways to do more with fewer resources. This is where robotic process automation (RPA) comes into play. RPA has evolved to become a strong technology given its ability to automate a wide variety of repetitive tasks which help offset the impacts the industry is facing. 

RPA excels in its ability to automate repetitive tasks requiring manual effort.  Specifically, insurance companies deal with a variety of routine tasks across data entry, claims processing, policy administration, accounting/finance, human resources and technology.   These tasks can be quickly and accurately executed by RPA technology, freeing up employees to focus on more complex work that requires higher critical thinking skills and judgment. RPA can also significantly reduce processing times for claims and policy underwriting by streamlining, not just individual tasks, but overall processes. This contributes to improved to customer satisfaction and higher retention rates.

It's important to highlight here that RPA is no substitute for experienced, knowledgeable employees. Rather what it accomplishes is the rule based repetitive tasks allowing staff to focus their experience and knowledge where it really counts and where they feel they can provide the most value.

Relative to Operations, RPA can help insurance companies optimize their operations through improved accuracy which reduces the burden carried by their workforce.  One area in particular where RPA benefits the organization is the reduction in risk of error in claims processing. When aligned correctly to an existing process, automation can eliminate the potential of human error associated with manual processes and improve future accuracy as well. 

The benefits shared above, all relate back to improved customer experience. It's no secret that customers are moving to mobile solutions for convenience which means streamlining the quote and policy enrollment process makes for happier customers and allows companies to gain a competitive advantage using RPA.

Another powerful benefit of RPA is the technology's ability to utilize anything-as-a-data source. This feature enables more complete data capture and utilization. This enables insurance companies to quickly and accurately “harvest” key content from documents (e.g., pdf, doc, xlsx) and other sources (like email).  Once the content is harvested, RPA automatically moves the extracted information from disparate sources into the insurance process where it can then be utilized by a variety of front and back-end platforms. This represents just another way in which insurance companies are able to streamline processes and improve decision making based on complete data.

With our years of experience providing insurance products and services, we know that compliance in the insurance industry is burdensome and always evolving.  Automation can assist in two key ways to help control the impacts of compliance for an insurance company; the first of which is data quality.  If the data is entered into the system via automation reading, and storing that data from the source documents and systems, the cost of audit and review can be contained. Automated processes are performed the exact same way each time, reducing human injected variance into key processes.  Second is gathering the data that is necessary to perform the various filings and reporting that is required.  Automation is excellent at extracting and compiling the data in one place to make the compliance requirements easier. 

Digesting all of this information, simply means that automation in all of its forms, has become a critical asset to the mutual property and casualty insurance industry. By providing improved speed, accuracy, and efficiency, automation can offset the challenges imposed by the current talent shortage while protecting profitability.

Automation can help insurance companies optimize their operations while keeping their workforce focused on what matters most: delivering a great customer experience.

If you're interested in learning more, contact us. If you're interested in learning about the other insurance products and services we offer, check out our analytics team here.