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Issues & Answers Special Advertising Section:
 June 2022

Issues & Answers: Advanced Analytics

Salil Donde, CEO of Ventiv Technology, said decision science is a much broader area than simple analytics. “I think that’s the area that’s the next trend. I think it’s going to drive pretty significant returns for companies that embrace it,” he said. Following are excerpts from an interview.

Salil Donde
CEO
Ventiv Technology


“Ventiv has the ability to use the right type of analytics for the right problem.”



What are some of the top areas of innovation in the risk management space?

First and foremost would be the concept of improving efficiencies as symbolized by straight-through processing, which has reduced costs and expenses in our industry quite significantly. The second is digitalization as it pertains to data and as it pertains to processes. Digitalization has sped up claims settlement, information gathering, and delivery of the information to the right people. The third area that I think is just now coming up is what I refer to as decision sciences. It’s the ability to make decisions. It’s the ability for technology to provide you with options that you can choose from, that you make a decision from, or, in some cases, for the technology itself to prescribe a decision for you.

What types of analytics offer the greatest impact to insurers, brokers, and TPAs?

The insight that drives a business outcome, the insight that delivers a true return on investment. To give you an example, one of our customers uses our predictive analytics from our decision sciences tool set to understand the cost of a claim if it were to go into litigation versus if it were to not go into litigation. What they found is that a litigated claim in some cases could be as high as 50 times as much as a non-litigated claim. As soon as they get the information, our system flags for them the propensity of a claim to go to litigation or not. Based on that information, you can assign the right adjuster to adjudicate the claim based on the experience of the person. There are direct savings stemming out of it.

Do you think advanced analytics are the best tool in identifying a complex risk?

Advanced analytics encompasses a whole spectrum. There are different tools in the spectrum. Which tool you apply to the problem can drive real value. There are some problems that can be solved with predictive analytics. Some can be solved with just simple statistical analysis. As we all know, there are a significant number of data elements, a significant number of events that lead to a risk event. The human mind simply can’t comprehend all those variables. Therefore, a machine can leverage these, identify the right solution, and give insights into the unknown for your decision making. So it depends on the problem.

How do analytics differentiate Ventiv from other RMIS and claims administration providers?

At the root of it, most risk management information systems or claims processing, claims administration systems are workflow systems. Pretty much every company out there has the right workflows, the right user interfaces, the right dashboards, and the right reports. What really separates the leaders from the others is the ability to provide decisioning tools supported by decision science tools or analytics. That’s where Ventiv shines. Ventiv goes beyond providing a dump of data and instead provides actionable insights. Where Ventiv really excels is taking the rich data that we get and coming up with insights for our customers. That’s what sets Ventiv apart from our competition.