Claims Management: Please Make Things Easier

Give Me A Bot To Talk To!

I’ve been working in the insurance industry for a decade now. Not only am I a professional, but I’m also a client. I recently had a water leakage problem and was appalled by the inefficiency of the processes used by insurers. That was the source of my interest in bots. After weeks of reading articles on that topic in different business ares, I decided to describe how they could radically change the experience I had.

Insurers claim processes are complicated, long and inefficient

Here Is What Happened

I became aware of the water leakage on a Saturday. I tried to call my insurer, but the service was already closed for the week-end. I then decided to go for a declaration on the insurers website. After a succession of menus I could finally start my first notice of loss (FNOL). I had to fill a long series of forms with checkboxes and lists I didn’t really understand. Some of those were not related to my case and / or were hard to understand (even for someone like me who works in that industry). It took me a few minutes to complete the forms, as I was not sure what to say.

On Monday

I expected a call from my insurance company to tell me what the next steps would be. That call never came, so I decided to call them. I had to try seven times as all the agents were busy. To my surprise the agent I had on the phone first showed dissatisfaction. She said that as I made a FNOL on the web my file had been assigned to another team, and I should wait for that team to call me. I had to insist to get information on the intervention of a damage expert which expert was supposed to call me the next day. Yet the insurance agent gave me his phone in case he wouldn’t call but insisted I didn’t call before Wednesday! As I feared, I had no call from the expert, and I had to be the one to call. Again I had to try several times before someone picked up…

I Won’t Go On Much Longer

Even though there would be much to say about this inefficiency I won’t go on much longer. What I learned there is that if you don’t want to wait for 6 months for the claim to be settled, you need to take the place of the insurance agent and make the calls yourself to make sure all actors of the process share the right and up-to-date information! You could say that it was all bad luck but I heard dozens other people with almost the same story. On top of that, the company I have a contract with is one of the major companies in the market. (I’m not sure the company I work for is better in claims management). Now what should we do next?

Bots Can Make Things Much Easier For The Customer

First, with a bot I could have made a FNOL in a much easier way on Saturday. No app to download. Second, it’s much faster. The bot answers instantaneously. Third, with a bot I could have described my situation in a conversational way. This may seem very close to the forms I had to fill on internet, but it is different.

A. You just need to be able to talk which make things easier.

B. In a convo, you get one question at a time without knowing how many questions will follow.

C. The contextualization can be enhanced so that you will not be suggested an option / a checkbox that does not fit with your case.

D. Last but not least, with a bot you can have a remarkable contact (even if it’s with a machine). The bot can show some empathy, be funny. You can convey some level of emotions which can be important in such cases where the customer is a little nervous. As Thomas Hewitson said in a recent chatbots conference organized by Botscamp “personality is key”. When he worked on Pegg (a bot that helps you record your expenses) he interviewed many accountants and possible clients to help define Pegg’s personality and backstory. It will take some time before the bots master the use of those emotions but that time will come faster than we think.

… And The Insurance Company

Of course if the bot understands with the answers of the client that the customer panics (or for some special kinds of claims), it can suggest a discussion with a human agent! These agents would then be less overwhelmed as a significant part of the FNOL would be done by (or at least would start with) bots and they could focus on value added calls.

Here is an exemple of what this could look like (very simplified version).

Getting Appointments Faster

Another aspect that annoyed me as a customer was the delay to get an appointment with the expert. There again, two chatbots could do the job. One interacting with the client, the other checking the agenda of the damage expert. This could be done at any time. Agenda scheduling bots already exist. So this is not a dream.

What Next?

All this seems quite easy to implement. Of course, this is not possible for all claims, but as I said before, if the easiest claims were processed this way (or at least started with bots), you would already limit the overflow we often see in insurance call centers. In the market I work in, water leakage accounts for more than 30% of all home claims. In those cases, the human agents would be able to focus on more value-added claims and the customers who want fast interaction could be satisfied.

Of course there is a lot of thinking and designing to do in order to achieve a satisfactory level of convo with the customers, but I’m sure that is already possible with a limited amount of AI. And it will improve very fast. Some companies already started using bots as Lemonade inc (read this interesting article). Others like Spixii want to help insurers build their chatbots. It’s all just beginning…

If you have comments or want to share your experience or expectations on this subject feel free to contact me: finsurancemartin@gmail.com