Survey: Major Disruption Expected in Claims

Engaging customers and improved claims processes are the top goals for innovating the claims customer service experience, according to a new survey of 400 insurance executives released by Insurance Nexus. The insurance research and analysis firm found that 78 percent of insurance executives believe that the American insurance claims industry is in the midst of significant disruption, with artificial intelligence, automation and IoT having the most impact on claims innovation.

The survey focused on what is driving change, creating obstacles and making a difference as insurance carriers transform their claims process.

According to the executives surveyed, claims innovation was considered a key project by 61 percent of respondents.

Claims executives stated their main goals for claims innovation was to improve the customer experience (52 percent), improve process efficiency (29 percent), reduce costs (16 percent) and fraud (3 percent).

Insurers’ top priorities for transforming the claims customer experience, according to the survey:

1. Claims simplification – 33%
2. Dynamic customer communications – 15%
3. Understanding customer expectations – 12%
4. Self-service claims – 12%
5. Personalization across touchpoints – 9%
6. Customer journey mapping – 9%
7. Omnichannel platforms and portals – 6%
8. Automated first notice of loss(FNOL) – 4%

Survey respondents said claims will be impacted the most from machine learning and artificial intelligence (36 percent), automation (25 percent) and IoT, wearables and sensory data (9 percent).

While claims innovation is high on insurance executives list, most (74 percent) said that incremental changes leading to major transformation best suited their companies. The remaining 26 percent said they planned to start from scratch and embrace innovation (17 percent) and 9 percent said they were not looking at changing their claims processes.