Robotic process automation (RPA) has revolutionized business processes across industries by automating repetitive tasks. The insurance sector in particular has benefited immensely from adopting RPA technologies. It has enabled insurers to streamline operations, reduce costs, enhance compliance and improve customer experience.
In this blog, we discuss the top five use cases of RPA in insurance – claims management, underwriting, policy servicing and administration, regulatory compliance and scalability and product innovation. By digitalizing manual rule-based activities, RPA is playing a pivotal role in driving efficiency and transforming insurance operations.
Importance of RPA in insurance
RPA has become increasingly important for insurance companies looking to optimize processes and reduce costs. With rising customer expectations and regulatory compliance requirements, traditional manual methods can no longer meet today’s demands. RPA aids digital transformation by automating high-volume repetitive tasks across functions like claims, underwriting, policy administration etc.
This allows insurers to redeploy resources to more strategic tasks. Automation also improves productivity multifold and ensures consistency and accuracy in operations. It strengthens compliance by minimizing human errors. Furthermore, RPA enhances customer experience by speeding up processes like queries resolution, damage assessment and claim disbursal. Insurers have witnessed up to 60% improvement in turnaround time and over 80% reduction in manual efforts with RPA implementation. It propels innovation and scalability for insurance firms to capture new business opportunities. Overall, RPA delivers tangible benefits that are critical for remaining competitive in today’s digital era.
RPA use cases in insurance
Here are the key RPA use cases in insurance:
Claims management
Insurers receive thousands of claims documents like forms, bills and reports every month that need to be processed. Previously, insurance agents would spend hours manually extracting data from these documents, checking for completeness, and entering details into core insurance systems. With RPA, bots can now be configured to automatically scan incoming documents, extract crucial data using optical character recognition and artificial intelligence, and populate relevant fields in claims systems.
They can route documents to appropriate claims handlers, update claims status and even escalate processing of pending claims automatically. This has significantly reduced processing time and cost of claims while improving accuracy. By digitizing repetitive document processing tasks through RPA, insurers have been able to redeploy claims agents to focus on more complex claims that require human expertise and judgment.
Underwriting
Underwriting is another key insurance process that benefits tremendously from Robotic Process Automation Singapore Traditional underwriting involved insurance agents collecting customer documents, verifying information manually and deciding on accept/reject of applications. With RPA, bots are used to collect different documents uploaded by customers during the application process.
They leverage optical character recognition to extract key fields like customer name, age,Sum Insured from these documents. The extracted information is then automatically populated in underwriting systems to pre-screen applications. Bots help flag applications that need manual review based on set underwriting rules. This speeds up the overall underwriting process while reducing turnaround time for customers. Insurers can now process higher volume of applications with lower turnaround time and operational cost through RPA-driven automation of repetitive underwriting tasks.
Policy servicing and administration
RPA is also proving highly beneficial for automating policy servicing and administration processes in insurance companies. Bots are used to generate and dispatch policy documents, renewal notices and other correspondence to customers on time before due dates. They ensure timely premium collection by automating follow-ups for pending payments. Any updates to customer or policy details like changes to coverage, customers’ contact information etc. are automatically reflected across the insurer’s systems by the bots. This helps deliver seamless service to customers. The bots also handle basic customer queries by accessing FAQs, thus reducing load on call centers. With RPA handling high volume repetitive paperwork related to servicing of millions of policies, insurers have been able to redeploy agents to high-value customer services and regulatory functions. This has improved turnaround time, compliance and overall customer experience.
Regulatory compliance
Regulatory compliance is another key area where insurers are leveraging RPA. Insurance is a highly regulated industry that requires constant monitoring of business processes and reporting. Previously, gathering data from disparate systems and manually preparing compliance reports was a lengthy and error-prone process. With RPA, bots are programmed to retrieve data from different sources and consolidate reports on a predefined schedule. They monitor transactions continuously for any divergence from compliance standards. The bots can also automate disclosure requirements by extracting relevant policy details. This helps reduce chances of manual mistakes and ensures seamless audits. Additionally, RPA allows testing potential process changes for regulatory impacts in a controlled environment. By automating rule-based reporting tasks, insurers have been able to strengthen compliance function with lower costs and effort.
Scalability and product innovation
Leveraging robots for automation has helped insurance companies scale their operations and rapidly introduce new products. By digitalizing repetitive back-office workflows through RPA, insurers have been able to reduce turnaround times for file processing, underwriting and claims. This allows them to efficiently handle higher volumes without increasing headcount.
Additionally, RPA aids quicker launch of new insurance covers. Robots facilitate faster testing and modification of workflows to integrate product rule changes. They automate end-to-end processes for new offerings from need identification, product design to launch. This speed and agility enables insurers to swiftly capitalize on market opportunities. RPA also provides the flexibility to deploy bots across multiple locations, ensuring business continuity and consistent customer experience. Overall, automation is empowering insurance firms to scale on-demand, innovate actively and future-proof their operations.
Conclusion
RPA has proven to be a powerful tool for insurance companies to optimize resources, strengthen regulatory control and inject agility into their processes. Leveraging automation, insurers are delivering higher value services to customers, exploring new revenue streams and future-proofing their business against technological disruptions. While RPA adoption is still in nascent stages for some smaller insurers, the benefits of increased productivity, reduced costs and enhanced compliance make automation an important imperative. As the technology further evolves with capabilities like machine learning, its application across the insurance value chain will continue expanding. RPA thus remains a business-critical component for energizing legacy insurance operations.
