Why predictive analytics is key to achieving competitive advantage in insurance industry

Ask any insurance business; what’s toughest part of their operations, and you are most likely to hear, making sense out of data available with them. After all, data is everything in insurance industry and that is how they serve their customers. Insurance organizations have always been driven by data and analysis of the data that is at the heart of the entire operations.

There was a time when information usage in insurance was largely confined to traditional historical analysis. Time and again, we see insurers spend hours gathering and analyzing, only to fail to detect and prevent fraud.  Fraud detection and prevention is another demanding and time-consuming task that organizations had to undertake to do business. Since access to data was limited, existing data was used to detect a fraud and validate or disprove claims.

Data should be the fuel for quick and confidence business decisions

Data should be the fuel for quick and confidence business decisions. Unfortunately, insurance teams spend up to 80 percent of their time wrangling poorly analyzed data before they can get on with the analysis part. As it turns out, they have to typically depend on existing approach which is error-prone, time-consuming and resource-intensive to determine the authenticity of the documents. There is little automation when it comes to verifying such documentation process and whatever little process exists, it is highly tedious exercise.  After all this, if the information gathered is erroneous or incomplete or not according to the expectations there is a chance of businesses incurring losses.

Outdated legacy technologies fast becoming a problem for insurance companies

Insurance industry gathers a substantial amount of customer data during the process of accepting the applications for insurance from customers. A good part of the data is normally present in a format that is not so easy to analyze. As if that is not enough, a majority of the time insurance companies perform their routine processes using outdated and legacy technologies. As a result most insurance teams involved in processes applications and claims have access to data they should not and that is fast becoming a problem for insurance companies.

Insurance industry coming under growing pressure 

The insurance industry is coming under intense pressure from rising customer expectations, fast changing technology landscape, ever-increasing regulatory scrutiny, evolving risks and complex business models, which are acting as barriers to business growth. Many organizations acknowledge this gap but they are unable to take any steps in that direction because of legacy systems and aging processes that act as road blocks.

To overcome the barriers of legacy processes, insurance companies need to adopt digital transformation technologies and leverage data analytics not only as a way to aid insurance operations but also to unleash the value of data locked in data through analytics.

Why insurance companies are increasingly turning to automation, data and analytics

Insurance companies are increasingly turning to automation and analytics to analyze historical data, unlock trends and hidden value and apply these patterns in transforming the business, engage customers, improve customer experiences at the same time reducing the time taken to handle claims process and eliminate fraud.

Data combined with analytics helps gain actionable insights that matters

Insurance organizations are sitting on gold mine of information and they can make sense out of these data sources to gain insights into customer expectations. Data combined with analytics presents a valuable opportunity for organizations to gain actionable insights that matters. But to full capitalize on the benefits of analytics, insurers need to have right analytical tools.

Fraud detection and prevention is one such area, which is understandably a top concern for insurers. This is where organizations can leverage data analytics to gain deeper understanding of claims process and leverage technology to predict a potential fraud and prevent from occurring.

Customer retention is every business’ key concern and insurance business can’t be an exception to it because the quality of customer experience is the difference between customers remaining loyal or switching loyalties to another insurance provider.

If you’re betting your future on digital disruptive technology initiatives to increase customer focus and efficiency, don’t overlook the benefits of data and analysis. It’s not only customer expectations and demographics that are changing, but how you reach customers is in a perpetual state of flux.