5 Ways Content and Process Management Increases Insurer Profitability

Insurers are facing some of the biggest challenges in the industry's history. With increasing competition, higher customer expectations, and a growing list of regulatory requirements, it's harder than ever for organizations to grow their business, increase profitability, and maintain a competitive edge.

To this, we add the arrival of an unprecedented amount of information in an increasingly diverse range of formats, making it even more difficult for insurance companies to keep up. Much of this content is unstructured and requires extensive documentation and manual tasks for processing. And in most insurance organizations, information is not kept in a central location but across various systems. If an insurer has gone through a merger or acquisition, this increases the number of data silos spread throughout the organization. Furthermore, many insurers face legacy systems whose functionality is obsolete and are increasingly difficult to manage.

Quickly finding information in response to a request—such as providing a quote to a potential client or processing a claim for an existing one—is paramount, but almost impossible when the required information is difficult to locate. If the customer doesn't get fast service and quick answers to today's demands, they are most likely to take their business elsewhere, and spread the word about their bad experience through social media. In a business where reputation is everything, this can be as damaging to the insurer as a lost customer.

Insurance companies are also grappling with an increasingly complex industry and government regulations. From the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for US publicly traded companies, to the rigorous RMORSA standards, to Solvency II in Europe and other insurance obligations, it is becoming more difficult and expensive to manage and control content throughout its lifecycle in a compliant manner. Failure to do so can result in additional costs due to fines and prosecution, as well as severe reputational risk.

To compete in this fast-paced and challenging environment, insurers need to find ways to reduce operating costs and increase efficiency, including simplifying, streamlining processes, and eliminating manual tasks so that staff can focus on higher-value priorities. Organizations must also be able to react quickly to changing market and business conditions. But when it comes to managing resources and workflows across multiple locations, national borders, and time zones, it's easier said than done.

What can insurance organizations do to address these challenges, establish a competitive advantage, and increase profitability? In this article, we will explore how content and process management solutions can help.

Enhance the customer experience and retain policyholders

Now more than ever, people know what they want and expect it to be delivered immediately. The rise of this “now” mentality is seen not only in drive-thru lines and consumer shopping, but also in the insurance industry. From the moment they first interact online with ‘quote-shops“ offering instant estimates and comparisons along with competitive rates, prospective customers expect insurance providers to offer quick, thorough, and useful information whether on the phone, to their laptop, or via their smartphone or tablet. According to Barry Rabkin, principal analyst at the London-based firm Ovum, ”Customer experiences are becoming the bedrock of competition in the insurance industry and companies need to embrace customer needs, expectations, and satisfaction in their customer experience management strategy.".

The problem is that many insurance providers cannot meet those high standards because they do not have the necessary information at their fingertips, preventing them from gaining a complete view of the customer. Often, information is scattered across different applications or databases, and even if they manage to gather all the information, staff struggle to organize and prioritize it. New content often takes time to reach the right person in the context they need, making it difficult to present up-to-date information to current and potential customers. The result? Only 30% of insurance customers report a positive experience, according to a recent CapGemini survey.

All of this changes with the introduction of a content and process management system. Such technology can capture information and make it immediately available to the right person at the right time via a rules-based workflow, and without leaving the insurance system they spend most of their workday in. It can also search for information across all record systems and intelligently prioritize results before they reach the user, so they only see the most relevant content. Another benefit of the rules-based workflow is that if frontline staff are out of the office, the system intelligently sends the content to a colleague with equivalent process skills instead. An intuitive workflow designer also makes it easy to balance workload during peak times, such as after a hurricane for a property insurer.

Quick access to specific, current, and complete information means faster responses to customer inquiries, increasing satisfaction and retention rates, and decreasing the risk of customers going to a competitor. Insurance companies that impress their customers can also sell across a wider range, more easily and at low cost, such as convincing a car insurance policyholder to add a homeowner's plan. Furthermore, issuing additional policies is easier and more profitable when staff have a complete view of the customer and all supporting documents.

Certain customer-specific information may not even require staff intervention, but it can be conveniently provided to policyholders via a secure portal on their laptop, smartphone, tablet, or any other device, accessible from anywhere, at any time. This aligns with the trend identified by Forrester analyst Ellen Carney, who predicts that mobile commerce will grow by 39% in 2016.

The implementation of Kofax's content and process management solutions helped Illinois Mutual Life Insurance Company accelerate its response time, increase productivity, and reduce the time it takes to respond to a policy request by 75 percent. Seamless integration with various property applications allows employees working in policy services, underwriting, sales, and other departments instant access to supporting documents with a single click. Instead of routing paperwork between departments, staff sends documents to colleagues electronically, which speeds up policy processing and reduces redundant effort. When customers call with questions, IMLIC staff instantly retrieves specific policy documents, eliminating callbacks and increasing customer satisfaction. “Perceptive content brings all the information we need to our fingertips to quickly respond to inquiries,” said Sue Steele, Assistant Vice President of policy services at Illinois Mutual. “The result is greater customer satisfaction.”.

Case Study: Illinois Mutual Life Insurance

• Improve efficiency and reduce costs

Unfortunately, many of the duties in a typical insurance company still require manual effort – from digitizing and indexing applications, creating standardized customer correspondence, to calling other departments to request a claimant file. According to AIIM, 70 percent of insurance companies have no claims automation in place, leaving their officers burdened with paper-laden processes. Such functions are not only slow and tedious but also prevent resources from leveraging their expertise in higher value-added functions that can help the organization gain new customers and retain existing ones. Furthermore, non-automated processes take longer to complete, delaying customer service and revenue cycles while increasing labor costs for each transaction.

By managing content and processes, most routine and manual tasks are eliminated, allowing employees to be more efficient and effective. Additionally, powerful process-centric features make it easy to identify and eliminate bottlenecks and extra steps that prevent the business from reaching its full potential. And the costs associated with manual, paper-based processes, such as paper itself, associated office equipment, shipping expenses, and content storage, are significantly reduced by implementing a centralized content and process management system. This technology allows businesses to address what a 2013 Gartner study identified as the second most important concern for insurance executives – reducing business costs.

Powerful business-vision and Process Mining tools make it easier than ever to see what's happening, what's going wrong, and how to perfect and refine every step of every workflow. You can also see how people, processes, and content are truly interacting, rather than relying on prolonged assumptions. And with rich graphical modeling and predictive analytics tools, managers can see how their new processes perform in a data-driven virtual environment, taking the guesswork out of process improvement. If something isn't going as planned, it's simple to make adjustments on the fly. Simpler, streamlined processes mean faster, smarter, and more cost-effective management of insurance claims, cases, and policies.

• Mitigate risk and improve compliance

Mitigating the risk of fraud or non-compliance is another major concern for insurance organizations, and it is also linked to cost reduction.

According to the Insurance Fraud Coalition, insurers lose $1.8 billion annually due to fraud. One way companies can reduce their exposure is by implementing content management processes for applications/quotes and claims handling. With this technology, insurers can compile a complete history of the applicant and the property, rental, or any other entity they wish to insure, capturing all incoming information and compiling it for immediate review. This comprehensive view can help insurers identify potential fraudulent activity and decide not to issue a quote, a policy, or pay a claim to certain individuals based on risk assessment, thereby limiting exposure.

Content and process management can also provide enterprise-wide search capabilities to locate documents across all systems – including repositories, SharePoint sites, email systems, network file shares, databases, and social media – to identify potentially fraudulent patterns across all divisions and prevent future incidents.

Content and process management can be beneficial in other risk management strategies, such as regulatory compliance and audits. When an insurance company is asked to complete an audit or submit policyholder information as part of a legal process, it often becomes a scramble. It can be a huge manual effort to find, retrieve, and organize the relevant data, pulling team members away from their core activities, which they can't afford to ignore. Information is typically housed across multiple applications and platforms, and some might even be on paper. This makes it very difficult to provide current and complete data requests to auditors or the court. Failure to meet these requirements can result in fines and other repercussions.

Advanced search tools allow users to retrieve information from a central content repository with no added effort. As content is captured when the organization receives or generates it, search results show an instant, real-time view of even the most recent documents. This makes internal and external audits straightforward and reduces staff involvement. In some cases, auditors may be granted temporary access privileges to find the content they wish to review, or sample documents can be directed to an auditor's workflow queue using business logic.

The ability to perform a single intelligent search that extracts data from multiple applications also simplifies legal procedures. Intuitive search tools can also “learn” to identify patterns to pinpoint and alert claims adjusters to potential fraudulent claims, helping insurance companies avoid losses in payouts for such claims.

Another way content and process management helps mitigate compliance risks is by empowering the organization to handle insured files and other content throughout their entire lifecycle according to the company's retention policies. Every piece of content has a complete audit trail, so internal and external auditors can see the customer and financial information move through defined, repeatable channels. Content is only purged after it's no longer legally required for the business to retain it, so there are no penalties for deleting information that may be needed during an audit or legal action.

• Increase competitive differentiation

As the market for most insurance lines becomes increasingly saturated and there are more competitors driving down insurance premiums, organizations must find other ways to differentiate themselves.

Content and process management can be helpful in various ways.

First, information capture at the point of receipt is automated. The entire spectrum – from faxes, forms, and digital media files – is digitized and available to the people who need it, in the right place within their daily processes. The link between this advanced capture and streamlined, automated process management makes it faster and easier than ever to provide a quote, service a policy, review a claim, and pay a claimant. Insurance companies achieve considerable time savings by eliminating manual indexing, associated errors, and the repetitive work that can result. Improved document control not only creates a good impression with prospective clients and keeps policyholders happy, but it also reduces the cost of each transaction.

Consistently recognized as an industry leader and a winner of the Ageas award, Ageas Insurance Limited insures approximately seven million customers in the United Kingdom, and is one of the country's largest insurers. With over 5,000 incoming emails per week and 450 employees handling over 60,000 claims, the claims department at Ageas was inundated with slow, manual, and paper-laden processes. Implementing Kofax solutions has allowed Ageas to efficiently capture claims and other policy-related content and flow it through a fast, paperless claims management process. “Team leaders used to do a lot of overtime manually sorting through paperwork, but that’s no longer necessary because the automated claims process does it for them,” says Roger Walters, e-Business Manager at Ageas. “They now have more time for team leadership.”.

Case Study: Ageas Insurance

In addition to helping increase margins and improve document handling, content and process management can help an organization retain its most important resource: its employees. When employees spend a large portion of their time chasing down documentation and performing repetitive, menial tasks that prevent them from using their skills, they often feel dissatisfied. This leads to high turnover, coupled with early retirement and the loss of years of accumulated experience, which is difficult and expensive to replace. Then there's the fact that new replacements lack comparable experience and require training, which delays their ability to contribute and provide prompt, informed service.

When an organization eliminates manual tasks with content and process management, resources are able to apply their knowledge and expertise in ways that benefit the company. Their job satisfaction increases, and employee turnover decreases. This is beneficial for everyone because it preserves specialization, prevents the loss of quality staff to competitors, and reduces the costs of hiring and training personnel, which helps the organization gain and maintain a competitive advantage. The knowledge of experienced employees can also be incorporated into processes, so that if they leave or retire, their valuable experience is retained.

A new feature in content and process management that improves staff retention, and even hiring, is mobility. A New York Life executive recently told Baseline Magazine that offering “out-of-the-box” features to field agents and other staff was crucial for attracting and retaining top talent and that “if we don't have more technology available to them, it would be a detractor.” Content and process management technology allows users not only to retrieve, view, and pass information to the insured at a remote location, but also to capture content (such as videos, photos of property or flood damage, or a car accident) from any location, trigger the next stage in a workflow, or approve a document.

• Increase business agility

Another way content and process management can help organizations get and stay ahead is by providing a new level of agility, which in a recent Insurance Networking News article was defined as the “ability to design and implement changes to systems quickly, at low cost and risk.” Whether an insurer acquires another company, opens new offices in another city or country, or moves into a new line of business, change is a constant challenge. Companies have typically found it difficult to take the time to adapt because they are so busy trying to keep up with customer needs and have limited business intelligence on how their processes actually work. Traditional workflow optimization required a laborious analysis that often missed the mark, as it didn't provide a “deep dive” into organizations' content and processes.

All of this changes with content and process management. Now, unexpected challenges and changing market conditions don’t have to be disruptive and can actually spur positive advancement. It’s easy to see how content flows through the organization, who touches it, and how their interactions contribute to processes. Once an organization is aware of what it’s doing and can see content moving in a graphical way (similar to how cities see traffic patterns), it can adapt more easily and quickly, eliminate bottlenecks, and shift responsibilities as needed. Customizable, real-time analytics and reporting, a drag-and-drop workflow designer, visually sophisticated dashboards, and other intuitive tools make it easier to make informed changes on the fly that help an insurer better manage what’s happening now and what’s coming.

Furthermore, content and process management can greatly help improve agility by uniting information that was previously stored in disparate line-of-business applications and legacy systems. This seamless integration brings all these data silos together, providing comprehensive, accurate, and relevant information in seconds with a single click. An insurance organization can quickly gather all the information it needs to move forward, without diverting valuable time to frustrating and fruitless search efforts.

• Summary

To increase profits in today's challenging environment, insurers must improve responsiveness to existing and potential customers, increase efficiency, and reduce risks to lower costs, while also finding ways to enhance competitive differentiation and business agility. Content and process management solutions can go a long way in controlling each of these areas by providing a 360-degree view of each customer's information with a single click.

This technology replaces slow and cumbersome paper-based tasks with automated and faster processes. Therefore, insurance companies can significantly reduce labor/material costs and increase both customer and employee satisfaction. By automating workflows and practices, insurers can react more quickly to changing market and business conditions.

These solutions increase the visibility and understanding of how people, processes, and content interact, enabling insurance entities to eliminate obstacles and achieve higher levels of efficiency. Insurers can also limit their exposure to penalties by managing content in accordance with pre-defined retention policies, and can use analytical and intelligent search functions to detect and identify potential fraud.

With content and process management solutions, insurance organizations are better able to handle today's challenges and seize tomorrow's opportunities.