The last few years have seen unprecedented changes in the way we work. More than three-quarters (77%) of insurance executives believe their organization’s employees faced the largest and fastest human behavioral change in history as they moved from office-based to hybrid working.
Consumer expectations have also evolved, with many looking for better and faster experiences. Large corporations have improved their omnichannel and self-service customer service offerings, resulting in Millennials and Gen Z now expecting more in this regard from every organization. At the same time, turbulent economic forecasts suggest consumers and companies need to be cautious about their spending, with many organizations looking to reduce waste and improve efficiency wherever possible.
For insurers, all of these changes mean that it’s critical to find new ways to adapt to the new landscape of work, and customers’ demands, without breaking the bank.
8×8 Video Interaction can help you adapt to the new world of work, while improving and accelerating your claims process.
Text invitations plus video enable faster claims processing
Customers commonly file their insurance claims by phone. They’ll damage their car, then call up their agent. But once that claim is filed, often the claims process slows down.
Efforts to reach out by email can be sluggish. People can be slow to open and respond. The average open time for an email is 90 minutes, which is skewed significantly by work email, as personal emails can sit unopened for days.
If you meet customers on other channels, you can speed up the claims process from the start. Research has shown that 64% of consumers prefer communicating via text. Now add video. Video interaction lets you quickly communicate with the customer with invitations sent via SMS. This provides a secure link that starts the video interaction without the need for any additional apps or software. What’s more, video invitations can be sent while customers are on their very first engagement call, letting them share a video of their claim in real-time.
Claims management goes from months to seconds
Surveyors used to spend several hours each week traveling to the location of claims to collect evidence; a full team can clock-up months of hours to travel alone. By removing the need for travel, video interaction saves valuable time. What could have been hours of driving is reduced to mere seconds.
The whole claims process can also often be prolonged if a claim is disputed or insufficient evidence is provided. Both can push the process out from weeks to months. But using video interaction can help avoid large delays. Agents can use the desktop app and customers’ cameras to gather evidence. They can annotate high-definition images and video, and they can quickly reschedule a call to collect more evidence if a claim is disputed.
There’s also the matter of organizing and accessing all of the data and evidence. Once collected, evidence needs to be properly stored and easily accessible during the assessment phase. It is common now for there to be many forms of evidence from disparate sources in many different file formats. In the UK, over 11 million drivers record using dash cams, and some estimates suggest 60% of claimants use their phone to file and submit photo evidence. Video Interaction, collected by agents while engaging with the customer, helps your agents by storing evidence in one place. One-fifth of office workers say that finding files is the number one issue facing the future of remote work; 54% say they waste time looking for files.
Technology shapes the modern workplace
Accenture’s Technology Trends report shows 82% of insurance executives believe leading organizations will shift to a hybrid work model. Video interaction is an essential tool enabling this change, while also allowing your staff to be agile, efficient, and more productive.
Failing to adapt could come at a price. Modern IT systems can save insurance companies up to 58% on IT costs per Gross Written Premium and, according to Accenture, up to 43% operating costs per Gross Written Premium. Organizations that adopt new technologies such as video interaction can speed up the claims process, save money, and avoid complex technical integrations or lengthy customizations.
Combat fraudulent Insurance claims with remote surveys
In the UK, research found that insurers detected 96,000 dishonest claims a year, estimated at a value of £1.1 billion lost to fraud. Combating fraud is a costly business, with insurers spending around £200 million per year to help claw back some of those losses.
The overall rise in remote surveys, while saving money and increasing speed, do present new opportunities to combat fraud.
Video interaction can help. Because the video and images are captured in real time, surveyors can be sure that what they’re seeing is legitimate. It also lets surveyors direct the claimant, so they can inspect features as if they were physically there. As a large portion of insurance fraud is opportunistic, resulting from exaggerated details in a claim, the ability to direct the claimant can immediately combat this.
For any claims that are suspect, video interaction allows the rapid re-collection of any evidence, including exact location details. If a claim is at all doubtful, it provides an easy way of getting more evidence that can help settle those cases. Agents can quickly arrange a call to collect more evidence to verify or falsify the suspicious claim.
While the new world of work has seen insurers adapt to modern working habits, related technology has also opened new avenues for optimizing the claims process. Video Interaction is an invaluable tool to help insurers meet the challenges of modern work, accelerate claims resolution, address fraud-risks, and improve the customer experience.
Watch our Video Interaction demo to learn more about the benefits it presents to insurers
