Altus Insurance whitepaper spreads - Flipbook - Page 18
Are we on track?
Chapter Summary
• When it comes to digital transformation, claims management is starting to catch up with the services
provided for purchase and policy administration.
• The focus has been largely on developing an electronic 昀椀rst noti昀椀cation of loss (FNOL or eNOL) process.
• Whilst the “Insurtech” sector has been a hotbed of innovation over the last decade, it is more recently
that we have started to see signi昀椀cant investment in claims-focused solutions and for a number of them
to reach a level of maturity.
• With the availability of improved tools for data analytics and decision making, it is now possible for
insurers to start digitising the end-to-end claims process.
• Insurers need to consider the whole value chain, starting from the proposition, through to the overall
claims service and operating model, rather than tinkering with incremental changes (which are
important, but should form part of continuous improvement).
• There is a risk to insurers that take a wait and see approach, that they 昀椀nd themselves behind the curve
and as a result struggle to compete with those that developed more e昀케cient operating models for
claims.
Claims has historically been treated as a ‘back o昀케ce’ function when it comes to
transformation strategies and has, as a consequence, not received the attention
it deserves. But there has in recent years been an emerging focus from the
industry on bringing the transformation train to claims.
Varying levels of transformation across
the sector
What claims transformation looks like varies
considerably across the industry, with some insurers
focusing on tactical cost e昀케ciencies which can be
gained through automating the non-customer facing
activities while others are targeting the extended rollout of self-service capabilities beyond FNOL.
One of the key drivers of change in this space has
been the maturing insurtech landscape, which we
look at in more depth from a technical perspective
in Chapter 6. Historically, the focus has been on
policy administration and distribution but the rush to
develop new technology solutions to insurer problems
has led to pockets of real innovation in claims
emerging.
While technology vendors operating in the claims
space have consistently represented a reasonable
segment of the insurtech market, the majority of
investment has been focused on those solutions
in the sales and distribution area. Consequently,
innovative claims solutions have been fairly low
down the pecking order when it comes to external
investment.
While this can’t be viewed as the only metric of
a successful start-up, it does correlate with the
broader insurance industry view that when it comes
to transformation, wholesale changes to claims
processes, which as we all know are the most
important moment in the insurance value chain,
become more o昀琀en than not, an a昀琀erthought.
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