The COVID-19 pandemic has upended much of the world as we know it, wreaking havoc on industries of all sizes to varying degrees. And while business may be booming for networking technology companies or healthcare suppliers, for most industries the outlook is a bit more complex.
In the years preceding the pandemic, the landscape of the insurance industry had begun to shift dramatically. The industry had been experiencing a fundamental transformation driven by the emergence of InsurTech—which has accelerated product innovation and introduced new business models—and an increasingly stringent regulatory environment.
In an industry not accustomed to radical change, insurance organizations are quickly recalibrating as the impacts of the global pandemic and resulting economic crisis become more fully realized. Now, more than ever, adaptability and innovative thinking will be essential for creating pathways to success.
So, what does that look like for the insurance industry?
Digital Disruption
As in many other industries, insurance customers are increasingly seeking contactless transactions for increased safety during the pandemic. While this trend isn’t new to the insurance industry, widespread adoption of digital solutions by the large, traditional insurers has been slow-moving. These resource-rich organizations should be at the forefront of innovation, but many have simply not been ready to meet customers where they are today.
Now, amidst the upheaval of a global pandemic, the insurance industry is in the unenviable position of needing to fast-track digitization, a process which will need to happen at the speed of business.
Consider the Alternatives (Please!)
To keep pace in a competitive landscape that is only getting faster, smarter, and more connected, organizations must jump head first into the process of digitally transforming their operations. A comprehensive, yet flexible approach to digitizing legacy systems will drastically improve operational effectiveness and efficiency and prioritize customer expectations to enhance the customer experience.
- Challenge: Legacy systems consistently come up short, failing to cover the end-to-end insurance process. This can lead to errors or leave gaps that must be handled manually, which will lengthen processes and can negatively impact the end-customer experience.
- Consider: Organizations can capitalize on existing technology infrastructure to break down the entire insurance process and implement changes incrementally. This approach transforms critical processes piece-by-piece to ensure no step or function is overlooked.
- Challenge: Data ends up scattered across multiple platforms or siloed across departments and systems that are not compatible with each other or third-party, external sources. It is difficult to ensure a singular, complete view of data or to derive meaningful, reliable insights from data analysis.
- Consider: Given the wealth of untapped, hidden value in this scattered data, companies can go from clunky, manual operations to forward-thinking, customer-centric organizations pretty quickly. Data integration and system interoperability will enable seamless collection, storage, and management of data for the purpose of performing robust data analytics.
- Challenge: Entire departments have become siloed and operate their own system environments, which creates process bottlenecks and delays, limits effectiveness of collaboration, and hinders effective, informed communications.
- Consider: An integrated system that connects multiple business functions will simplify information sharing and provide increased insight for all parties. Underwriters and agents could collaborate effortlessly in near real time, improving the effectiveness of communications and, ultimately, enhancing the quality of service delivered to customers.
Insurance companies can improve underwriting processes and outcomes through digitization and streamlining of the entire process. Prime has partnered with Appian to tackle the challenges of digital transformation of established legacy systems. Appian provides a low-code development platform that enables powerful digital capabilities to replace manual processes and connects existing business systems in a single, streamlined user interface. The platform scales to accommodate system deployments of any size from the smallest programs to the largest enterprise deployments, on premise or in the cloud.
Ready to transform your business operations?
Insurers are operating in a world in which digital technologies are driving major shifts in expectations of customers and in the ways companies do business. As organizations adopt Appian’s low-code platform, there are many challenges along the path to a successful transition. To overcome this struggle, you need to rely on solid IT expertise. Prime, with extensive experience managing digital transformation and IT implementations, is the perfect partner and can guide you every step of the way through the implementation process.
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