COVID-19 has truly changed the way the world operates and with 2021 here, it’s a great time to evaluate how to adapt to this change for the new year. With tighter budgets and employees working from all corners of the world, insurance carriers are searching for ways to remain competitive in a digital-first world. 

While face-to-face client interaction may not be happening for at least halfway into 2021, there are other ways to keep and even increase customer retention, all while maintaining costs. Here are 6insurance technology trends that can put any insurance carrier on a fast track in 2021.  

6 Insurance Technology Trends to Adopt in 2021

1.  Omnichannel Communication 

Businesses that leverage and adopt omnichannel strategies manage to acquire a 91% customer retention rate year-over-year over businesses that don’t, according to Loyalty360.

Whether it is calling, email, text or chatbot, when it comes to reaching out or hearing from businesses,every person has a preferred way of communication. The same is applied with your insurance customers in how they wish to interact.  

Omnichannel communication is a universal way to communicate with customers over a series of different channels through call, text email or instant messaging — this means customers can reach you no matter what device they’re on providing convenience. And with a sophisticated omnichannel communication platform, you can even see where a conversation left off, so you know exactly where the current customer stands — leading to higher satisfaction and better organization. 

For insurance carriers, omnichannel communication is a gamechanger since it’ll change how customers will be able to interact — especially in younger generations that prefer to interact digitally.  And the benefit of omnichannel communication is two–fold as insurance carriers will have better accessibility tocustomers to answer questions as they come up. 

2. eSignature 

The harsh truth of needing a hard-copy document signed is that it takes forever! How long? According to FinancesOnline, obtaining hard copy signed documents can take up to five days, whereas if you use electronic forms with eSignature it only takes up to 37 minutes. That’s an eye-opener if there ever was one! 

As an insurance carrier, if you’re still relying on handwritten signatures on hard –copy documents, now’sthe time to upgrade. eSignature technology is a legal way to obtain the signatures you need as  a carrierfaster than ever. eSignature is compatible for anyone with a computer or phone, and most of the time,it’s done through a browser or email. All the signee has to do is use their finger or mouse to sign their name. 

Just imagine, no longer do you have to mail out or ask your clients to come in to sign paperwork and then wait days to receive approval on mailed–out forms. Plus, with this tool you’ll see a return on cost savings pretty quickly — all that ink, toner and paper really adds up!

3. Cloud–Computing 

Back in 2019, 56% of insurance carriers were preparing to migrate to the cloud. Now with the COVID-19 pandemic that number has increased, and migrations are helping at an accelerating rate. 

On-premises applications can cause major hiccups, especially with security. And with 2020 bringing aquick move to remote work due to the pandemic, it is likely there are some security loopholes that never got fixed — not good when you’re dealing with sensitive, private client information. In addition, there are other issues you may not even consider with on-premises applications including lack of scalability, restrictions in data backup and recovery, and roadblocks in accessibility to important files.  

If moving to the cloud is part of your 2021 agenda, let us help make it a smooth one. We offer content migration and consulting services to help you make the transition for cloud-based applications easierand faster.

4. Robotic Process Automation

By 2025, it’s estimated that 65 percent of insurance carriers will adopt RPA, according to Juniper Research. The ROI and hours saved insurance carriers are seeing are drawing them in to leverage intelligent automation technology, especially RPA.

Case in point: An insurance company, AXA, managed to save 18,000 hours of labor hours —  roughly that translates to $182,000 — with just 13 bots in six months. That’s some pretty substantial savings. 

Imagine if you could reduce the time it takes to get work done? I’m talking less data entry, faster data extraction and automated forms processing. Well, here’s where we come in!

At Pyramid Solutions, we offer Robotic Process Automation solutions to automate a vast variety of tasks within your business processes for the purposes to improve efficiency and productivity. And, in fact, 86 percent of those who implemented RPA, determined that productivity had been met or even exceeded their expectations, according to Global RPA Survey.  

For insurance purposes, this means quicker claims processing, a better customer onboarding experience, and faster settlements and a whole lot more! Want to know more about how RPA can beutilized for insurance? Check out our post on “Utilizing Robotic Process Automation in Insurance.”  

5. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

While RPA can take the reins to automate simple work tasks, for more complex tasks artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can help carry the load.

Within the umbrella of intelligent automation, AI and ML uses data to simulate human intelligence and decision-making to automate more complex tasks, predict outcomes and even providerecommendations. This allows for more intricate automating such as extracting unstructured data into correct fields. Imagine how this can be applied for insurance! Well, here are just a few examples below:  

• Automated Risk Assessments 
• Accurate recognition of fraudulent claims  
• Ability to identify upsell and cross sell opportunities  

And while AI and ML are thought of as sophisticated technology, it should also be noted that even if you are utilizing legacy technology it can still be used, so there is no need to build a new proprietary platform. As part of our intelligent automation suite, we offer AI and ML capabilities. Interested? Reach out to us in the form below. 

6. Establishing a Center of Excellence (CoE)

Did you know that 80 percent of companies that were looking to implement AI failed? When it comes torolling out new technology, especially within intelligent automation, it’s crucial to keep on top of it, otherwise it’ll fall apart. This is where a team dedicated to your automation project comes in.

A center of excellence is a team or group of individuals that help identify leadership, best practices, opportunities and support on a focused area within the business. CoEs are quite common in the IT field, however more and more companies are seeing center of excellences can be useful in other areasthroughout a business — and there’s no doubt a center of excellence would be beneficial to insurance carriers whether it’s for RPA, migrating to the cloud, cloud migration or adopting any other new technology that your entire enterprise can leverage.

A CoE is the key component to achieving results you want to see versus failure, and according to Gartner, it’s estimated that 50 percent of companies with at least 3 AI projects, will have an AI center of excellence by 2022. 

If you’re looking to implement a CoE within your organization for automation, we can help. As consultants and experts in intelligent automation for more than 30 years, we’ll not only help you put together a well-orchestrated team, but we’ll be also part of your CoE team to ensure you succeed — because when you succeed, we succeed.