Issues & Answers Special Advertising Section
December 2020
Bill Brower
Vice President of Auto Claims
LexisNexis Risk Solutions
“LexisNexis Risk Solutions provides real-time data with just a few clicks, then routes to the adjuster who can have a much more customer-focused conversation, having already received the information.”
The smartphone has changed our lives dramatically over the last several years. Many changes were happening of course before the pandemic, but since COVID occurred this year, it has really ratcheted up the urgency around change and making it possible for customers to connect with us in ways that are more automated than they may have been accustomed to in the past. A recent McKinsey & Co. study asked consumers how they felt about self-service and would they continue after the COVID event. It was a little bit surprising to see that 79% of those surveyed said they plan to continue to use those self-service options after this pandemic. It definitely has changed our world in many ways.
Have carriers begun to embrace touchless claims?Insurance carriers have been really interested in reducing touches for many years. In 2017, LexisNexis Risk Solutions introduced our first future-of-claims study where we surveyed the industry to learn more about where the industry was going. We introduced this term called touchless claims. What we intended touchless claims to mean is a process where a customer could handle their claim by self-service, start to finish, without needing to contact a human at the insurance company. We are seeing companies embracing this. One of the very large national carriers recently announced publicly that they will provide a touchless claims option by 2022 for all of their customers who wish to use that type of solution.
What do carriers need to consider to increase claims efficiencies?
The first thing carriers should do is evaluate where the human touch adds value and where it doesn’t add value. That will help them to understand the areas that they can automate. Carriers tell us in our studies that three or more people touch the average claim. That’s a lot of touches. That’s a lot of hand-offs. One of the areas that I think is really ripe for automation is the reporting of the loss, which we like to call the first notice of loss.
How can carriers improve their customer experience?
As I talk with carriers about how to improve the customer experience, I recommend that we start with mapping the customer experience or map the claims process from the customer’s viewpoint. In this way we’re able to see when the customer is interacting with a claims professional and what is happening each step of the way. In doing that, we can identify what those steps are. The reporting of the first notice of loss perhaps, or maybe there are other steps in the process that data and the digital capabilities we have today can automate so that those are steps that don’t require a human touch and instead allow this claim to be much more efficient. Those are areas that I’d really focus on.