The pitfalls and advantages of automation in insurance

CEO on what it takes to strike the right balance

The pitfalls and advantages of automation in insurance

Technology

By Mia Wallace

If you’re going to ask questions about automation and its increasingly important role in the insurance industry, it helps to have a specialist on hand. It was with this in mind that IB TV’s latest episode welcomed Kath Mainon, CEO of Claims Solutions UK and Ireland - Davies Group to discuss her views on the pitfalls and advantages of automation.

Looking to where automation can potentially go wrong, Mainon emphasised the “golden rule” – that when you’re trying to do anything that goes into customer experience, you must keep a clear focus on what you’re trying to achieve.

“And in that territory of customer experience, we are not trying to achieve a reduction in operating cost. That’s not the answer,” she said. “We are trying to enhance the customer experience and they’re not necessarily the same. And it’s absolutely not about imposing a digital journey on every customer and every part of the customer journey.”

From her experience of operating ENoL and digital journeys at Davies over the last few years, Mainon has seen how these options are hugely popular among many clients as they fulfil their requirements exactly. But it’s not the right channel for all customers, she said, and there needs to be flexibility.

“So today, an individual customer might love to get their update from our portal. Tomorrow, things are different and that same customer wants to talk to a person who can use empathy as well as skill and experience to guide them through the claim process,” she said. “So, the potential pitfall is investment in digital at the expense of investment in other channels. Getting it right is when digital is an option, but it’s backed up by or it’s complementary to a highly skilled and highly available human workforce.”

On the other side of the equation, among the many advantages of automation, Mainon highlighted how popular these solutions are among the customers who have elected to use them. The solutions have delivered great NPS scores and really strong feedback regarding customer experience, she said, but, in recent months, the true value of automation has proven itself even beyond that.

“In the last six months, I’ve seen another dimension to what automation has to offer to customers and insurers,” she said. “We had storms in November and we had particularly severe storms, Eunice and Franklin in February of this year. And automation has been hugely significant in our property business in delivering outcomes for customers…

“We can get the appointments booked immediately without human intervention and we can get the follow-up settlements done immediately without human intervention. That’s put us and our insurer clients in a position where we can continue to deliver fast, high-quality service in a really significant surge event. So the extra dimension I think for insurers, in particular, is surge resilience.” 

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