Holistic Insurance Digitization: Why Automating One Process Isn’t Enough

In today’s rapidly transforming insurance market, industry leaders are turning more toward automated solutions to help them best meet the needs of modern customers. While automated technology can benefit specific use cases in the insurance space, organizations that adopt holistic automation across every aspect of their business gain the most benefit from these solutions.  

The insurance compliance automation transformation

If you’ve been in the insurance game for longer than the last couple of years, you’ve likely seen some major transformations in the industry when it comes to technology use. The work-from-home requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing talent crisis, and the many other challenges of today’s complex world have all but forced carriers and agencies alike into something of a technological reckoning, specifically with the automation of manual processes.

Overall, it’s been a huge win for everyone involved, especially when it comes to reducing regulatory compliance risk. Managing producer licensing compliance is a hefty task made much easier with automation technology. Staying on top of license renewals, appointment tracking, and continuing education requirements are vital components of producer licensing compliance, but they’re not the best use of employee time. 

By eliminating the manual nature of common producer licensing tasks, insurance agencies can amp up employee productivity. Plus, automation helps eliminate the risk of human-error and delay, making it a win-win for insurance experts and customers.

3 benefits of holistic automation in insurance

Automating repetitive, time consuming processes, like regulatory compliance is a great way to improve organization workflows, but no matter which processes you automate, there’s likely room to grow. Only automating one process isn’t really enough to consider an agency, carrier, or MGA “modern.” To truly stay up with the technology revolution sweeping the insurance industry, insurance leaders should leverage automation across the various departments of their business as well as those they work with on a daily basis. 

And why wouldn’t they want to? End-to-end automation can increase productivity, speed up timely processes, and reduce human error across all departments. Just look at the benefits automation brings to the following processes: 

1. Automation speeds up the underwriting process

Though data-driven, the underwriting process is traditionally full of manual tasks. Analyzing heaps of data and pulling reports by hand can cause delays in and negatively impact the accuracy of risk assessment. 

Automation can fast-track the first phase of the underwriting process by quickly assessing applications without the need for human intervention. If the application is straightforward, the automated platform could create an accurate risk assessment in minutes. For more complicated cases, the software could flag areas that may need closer review by a human.

2. Automation improves customer experience 

The pandemic and resulting lockdown left insurance customers looking for ways to communicate with agents and improve their purchasing experience while also eliminating the need to meet in person. By automating tasks such as selecting policies, receiving quotes, and filling out applications, agencies are able to streamline the purchasing process for their customers.

The introduction of automated technology in insurance customer service means policyholders can now communicate with their agent wherever and whenever they need. With new solutions customers can receive prompt responses, make payments, and sign forms all from the convenience of their phone. This frees up agents to spend less time managing back-office paperwork and more time offering a personalized customer experience.

3. Automation eliminates friction in insurance claims processing

Everyone working in insurance knows how frustrating and inefficient claims processing can be for both insurance experts and policyholders. It’s chocked full of manual, time-consuming, repetitive tasks. In other words, it’s pretty much the perfect candidate for automation.

Implementing an automated claims processing system can reduce friction and frustration and cut down on the time it takes to reach settlement. With an automated claims processing solution, slow tasks including scanning documents, copying information from one system to another, and verifying data can be done with just one click.  

Integrate or bust

As you begin introducing automated technology into your business processes, integration will be key to your success. What’ve you got if you’ve invested in a bunch of automated systems and technologies that can’t speak to each other? Expensive bottlenecks, that’s what. And isn’t that exactly why you wanted to automate in the first place?

Avoid the frustration and wasted money by considering automated solutions that will easily integrate with each other as well as any legacy technology at your agency, carrier, or MGA. And remember, automation should not be a one-and-done deal. As new technologies emerge, agencies that stay on top of implementation and integration will be at an advantage over those that do not.

How insurance automation can benefit talent

We want to get one thing straight. While it’s true that automation typically means taking the “human” out of certain processes, it shouldn’t replace talent entirely. Instead, employees should feel empowered to work with technology in order to better serve their customers. 

Even with the rise of automation, there are still plenty of areas of insurance that benefit from the human touch. Some customers may want to communicate with their agent through text now rather than face to face, but they still want to talk to a human nonetheless. So, don’t go throwing away your talent! 

Automation will affect back-office processes the most, so be sure you are training team members working in these processes for front-end tasks. By automating certain tasks, you’ll actually benefit employees by freeing up their time and creating frictionless workflows. This will allow agents to spend more time on valuable tasks like advising clients and selling policies.  

End-to-end insurance automation fuels growth

While automating one process might help increase some organizational efficiency, holistic automation is the real key to success. Adopting end-to-end automation can create faster, more efficient workflows with fewer human errors. It can lead to decreased silos, with employees across multiple teams able to do their job with less friction and inter-team conflict.

It can also free up employee time to focus more on providing exceptional customer service and less on entering and re-entering data. The result — happier clients, higher profit margins, and solid foundation for continued growth.

At AgentSync, we know a thing or two about the benefits of organization-wide automation. Our digital solution leverages automation to help provide frictionless onboarding workflows and ensure your agency, carrier, or MGA/MGU remains compliant. See how AgentSync can kick-start your journey towards holistic automation today.