I love my Michigan folks, but I have to be honest: I can’t help but sport my Jayhawk pride as we start to wrap up March Madness. All I can say is good thing we’ve been remote and my blue spirit wasn’t on full display this year!
While I do enjoy my month of getting riled up, you can usually find me maneuvering strategically to create lessmadness in life – not active ways to participate in it. It may sound silly, but this is much of the reason I’m so passionate about supporting my insurance friends with tools to simplify and streamline their workday and customer communications. When it’s easy to do your job well, you enjoy it more and let the innate purpose of helping people in difficult times overflow into your interactions. Having been the recipient of gracious insurance agents who went the extra mile for me when nothing else was going right, I know the transformative power of being well-equipped to be kind.
But when it comes to talking technology, it’s easy for our eyes to gloss over at all the products, vendors, capabilities and, of course, costs – the ever-evolving industry is madness in and of itself sometimes. This would naturally deter anyone away from the conversation and, believe me, it does!
I completely get it, and that’s why I take pride in my job of boiling down all the competing messages into simple facts about the opportunities I see as being a best fit for you – I won’t waste either of our time dumping knowledge on you that isn’t relevant to your current needs.
So, given the world as it is today and the challenges I’ve heard many of my insurance friends struggle with, what would I recommend you take an interest in? I’m so glad you asked – here are my top three:
- Online Dispute Resolution (ODR): How are you handling disputes in this virtual workplace we find ourselves in? Literally “going to court” hasn’t been an option for quite some time, so you may find a backlog of sitting-duck cases and even more anxious, frustrated customers. Instead of staying dependent on the courts, I’ve enjoyed seeing many of my customers take matters into their own hands by adopting the ODR platform that allows insureds to manage their disputes on their own time, from their own homes, in a matter of a few hours or days. How? Because everything, from secure file sharing, video conferencing and automated settlement building to electronic signing, a 24/7 mediator robot option and case metrics, is available on this one platform. More information is available for you here.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): How many times per day do you wonder what more you could accomplish if repetitive data entry wasn’t taking up so much of your time? I cannot emphasize enough the significant difference made by just one or two of these RPA bots! They do not think – they are rules-based robots that mimic keystrokes and mouse clicks to accomplish those mundane, repeatable tasks that bog down your day. When you task your RPA bot with your grunt work, you have more time to invest into your higher-level initiative of serving your customers well and living out that difference you want to make. You can learn more about RPA here.
- Digital Evidence Management (DEM): When people think “evidence,” they tend to think about solving crimes Law & Order style – the amount of evidence received and managed by insurance agencies is grossly underestimated. From photos of damage, various video file types of incidents and audio recordings, insurers need just as much (if not more) secure storage space as the courts to index, retain and safely share evidence. This has been a long-standing challenge that, I’m excited to say, is coming to an end. In just a couple weeks, we’ll be sharing our digital evidence management solution for insurance agencies – one bundled platform that keeps your evidence management organized and compliant. This is something my existing OnBase friends won’t want to miss, as it seamlessly integrates with your existing workflow as a welcomed extension to the already paperless process you and your customers love. Welcoming DEM into your rules-based automation means a more natural process exists when managing digital evidence with the rest of your customers’ insurance cases – all the dots connect for an entirely paperless, end-to-end claims management lifecycle. I can’t wait to share more!
Not only are the three opportunities listed above healthy for your day-to-day operations and compliance efforts, but they’re crisis-resistant – this means that if you lean into a sustainably remote business model, or if another unforeseen circumstance boxes us into contactless operations, you’re covered and so are your customers.
And that’s a genius type of madness that I’m all for – when it comes to being prepared, believe me when I say luck has nothing to do with it.
Thanks for your time and we’ll talk soon.
Toni
How Insurers are Fighting the Pandemic (and Resulting Challenges) with Technology
As we hope the worst of the 2020 pandemic is behind us, many are still finding ways to “do their part” and mitigate the resulting widespread hardships. Many insurers and insurtechs are ahead of the curve by transforming how they reach and communicate with customers, manage contracts and perform general operations. Some could call it “crisis-resistant technology.”
InsurTechNews provides the quick read, “How Companies are Transforming Through the Use of Technology,” to share some of the innovation that’s been most relevant and helpful to the insurance industry.
RPA Your Way to an Etsy-Like Work Culture
Probably the biggest threat to sustaining organizations in today’s remote work culture is unmotivated staff. They no longer have that in-person bonding space that the office provided, and siloed positions can seriously isolate staff who don’t have many meetings or collaborative projects that actively pull them in as part of your team.
Demotivated and keying away at monotonous work, your staff could very well be eyeing more interactive and engaging opportunities for income. After all, it’s still remote friendly and has proven resistant to many extreme conditions: pandemics, weather, civil unrests, etc.
And as much as you love to hate them for it, Etsy innately solves for this heightened business challenge – largely the reason it not only succeeded, but thrived, throughout 2020.
So how do you keep staff engaged as active participants in your mission, especially now that they work remotely?
The Hyland Cloud: Castle-Like Security Suited for Royalty
A ring of fire, the moat, a drawbridge, archers and more are protecting the precious gem that is your core enterprise system – do you fear the enemy? Of course not! When your business model is safeguarded in the Hyland Cloud, its castle approach to security is always on high alert, designed to immediately retaliate against data breaches and other security threats.
Defenders of data protection since 2004, experts on the Hyland Cloud team happily absorb all your usual system security responsibilities so you can relax and focus on higher-priority projects.
Amanda Pfriem, Hyland’s Cloud Business Consultant, takes us on a more in-depth journey through what it means to operate in the Hyland Cloud instead of an on-premise system, including a breakdown of the Cloud’s various security layers, your new title as a SaaS customer and the much more affordable, single subscription cost model – no more prioritizing projects to fit boxed-in budgets!
The Insurer’s Faster, More Personable Approach to Disputes
While no stranger to high-volume claim disputes, many insurance agencies are becoming overwhelmed while not being able to mediate or escalate their growing number of low-payment claims, structured settlements and other disputes to the closed courthouses.
This challenge, however, has proved itself to be the nudge the insurance industry needed to become the personable, convenient provider that people want and, if we’re being honest, have come to expect.
By adopting online dispute resolution (ODR) into your insurance process, you allow customers to resolve their disputes in just a few hours or days while not interrupting their day-to-day life. Built around asynchronous communication in the highly secure Microsoft Azure Cloud, the 360-degree case management tool allows case participants to respond to instant messages or offers, make online payments, upload and exchange documents, and communicate with their mediator – all at their own convenience and within compliance guidelines. Insureds can also opt to recruit Molly – the only 24/7 AI mediator who manages blind bid communication between the disputants until she feels they’re ready to come to an agreement. Whether working with Molly or a human mediator, the ODR platform has a built-in settlement builder that streamlines the case to close.
For existing OnBase customers, ODR seamlessly fits into your already automated workflow to extend your end-to-end digital ecosystem. ODR also integrates with electronic signing platforms, such as TrueSign, to further speed up the process and make it as convenient and low stress as possible.
Interested in seeing ODR live in an insurance environment? Want to meet Molly, the AI Mediator? Visit our “ODR for insurance” webpage to learn more.
What Can We DO FOr You?
ImageSoft guides insurers through the selection of enterprise content management to achieve the efficiencies and cost savings you need. Our industry-leading solutions for insurance offer automated workflows, improved speed and efficiency, reduced costs and proper compliance.
ImageSoft is ready to help your company reap the benefits from integrated enterprise content management.