The Role Of IT In Modern Insurance Firms
The global insurance industry, valued at over $5 trillion, is experiencing a new wave of innovation. The more attractive, modern, tech-driven services provided by newer firms are drawing more clients away from larger, more established insurers each day. And as a result, developments in insurance IT have increased rapidly – in recent years insurance firms have invested more than $187 billion on IT. This new focus on more advanced technological insurance solutions has led to drastic improvements in efficiency, fraud identification and automation.
This deep integration of IT solutions with insurance services has given rise to insurtech, the collection of cutting-edge technologies which are redefining how insurance firms operate.
What Is Insurtech?
Insurtech is a collective term used to describe the variety of new tools that are being applied to the insurance industry to streamline processes and improve customer experiences. Entire organisations dedicated to developing new innovations in the insurtech field are either contracted by insurance firms or are run as departments within a firm.
IT Developments In The Insurance Industry
Investments in insurtech have led to the creation of new insurance models, practices and software which can provide services either to the firm or to the client. Typical insurtech solutions that benefit a firm include automation of claim processing and workflows, AI-driven monitoring of policies (through dashboards and automated performance reviews) and intelligent fraud detection systems. Other insurtech innovations like chatbots that assist clients, policies personalised using machine learning and unique financial plans developed based on specific client needs, all improve the customer experience at an insurance firm.
How Insurtech Helps Both Firms And Clients
The benefits of the AI services provided by insurtech trickle down to the customer. Analysing the rich client data collected by insurance firms allows the insurer to gain a deeper understanding of the customer – this, in turn, allows personalised insurance plans to be developed (instead of the blanket policies that were available in the past). This is more attractive to customers because they are less likely to pay insurance premiums that are based on generalised, impersonal and inaccurate risk assessments.
Customer loyalty can be strengthened further through easy-to-navigate online portals, mobile applications and chatbots. Chatbots are becoming a more mainstream approach of communicating with clients – these bots are programmed to carry out life-like conversations with customers to assist with basic queries. These chatbots are so well-developed that clients may be unaware that they are, infact, speaking with code. This allows more clients access to assistance all whilst saving the firm money through less staff needed in call-centres.
Insurance firms can further reduce the amount of auxiliary staff required by using AI to automate processes and eliminate redundant elements of daily workflows. AI can be introduced in almost all processes, for example, determining fraudulent claims (which cost both time and money to manage), improving data processing and developing stronger models to track trends in claims.
Additionally, the new insights made available through deep analysis of risk profiles allows firms to safeguard against potentially costly claims. Deep learning enables firms to optimise their policies, adjust their marketing and service strategies and grow their clientbase by accommodating their customers’ individual needs.
Managed IT Services For Insurance Firms
- Cut down on waste. IT solutions can eliminate unnecessary manual tasks and introduce automated processes to increase business efficiency.
- Reduce staffing costs. Modern artificial intelligence has evolved rapidly over the past decade and, in many cases, is now more reliable than humans. Replacing positions typically filled by humans with bots will both reduce operating costs and increase customer satisfaction.
- Increase the number of clients. Older firms which have been slow in adopting the latest services in insurtech have been losing their clients to newer, more agile firms. Now that clients are aware that there are easier approaches to insurance, the chances that they will remain with an outdated firm are slim. To gain considerable control of the insurance market, firms must adapt to their clients – this can only be achieved by implementing the state-of-the-art tech services provided by insurtech.
- Increase business flexibility. Cutting-edge technology allows firms to better reach their clients (through mobile apps, for example) and remaining flexible to their needs is critical when maintaining a large clientbase. Such flexibility is only found in firms who have successfully modernised their approach using managed IT services.
Experienced At Working With Insurance Firms
At 9spheres Technologies we have partnered with market-leading tech companies and make use of premier cloud-based software to enable us to provide the best IT solutions to suit your firm’s specific needs. We prioritise performance and stability in all of the integrated services we provide. Our expert system engineers are guaranteed to install, maintain and provide the technical support for the perfect IT solution for your insurance company.
9spheres Technologies can help your business to smoothly transition to a more stable work from home arrangement. Through improving the speed and security of wireless connections, 24/7 IT support, and the installation of continuously monitored, robust networks, we can set your firm up for success. We’ll remove the hassle of dealing with the ever-changing IT industry so that you can focus on what’s important: your clients.
