5 Insurance IT Workflows You Can Automate to Stay Ahead

By Ginikachukwu Nwibe

on Thursday, Sep 19th, 2024

The insurance industry can feel like an endless maze of paperwork, repetitive tasks, and enough data entry to make your fingers weep. Insurance IT workflow usually involve managing complex systems, large amounts of data, legacy processes, customer and regulatory requirements. This constant backlog of IT requests can be overwhelming. Automating key insurance IT workflows will not only help you to improve efficiency across the organization but also position you and your team as valuable drivers of innovation and growth.

Let's begin by discussing the criteria for choosing an IT workflow automation tool for your insurance company. Then we will go into 5 core IT workflows in insurance that you can automate to stay ahead.

How to Choose the Right Insurance IT Workflow Automation Tools

Now that we have established that automation is the key to streamlining your insurance IT workflows you might want to go out there and find yourself an automation tool.

However, before you rush out and buy the first shiny insurance IT automation tool you see, let's talk about some critical factors for choosing the right one for your insurance business.

This is important because choosing the wrong tool can lead to more inefficiencies and costs.

Compatibility with existing systems: Does the tool integrate seamlessly with your existing insurance software and databases? Incompatible tools can create data silos, where information gets trapped in individual systems, making it difficult to access. This hinders overall efficiency. Compatibility ensures data flows freely between systems, providing a holistic view of operations. Also, since employees are familiar with existing systems, they can adapt quickly to automation tools compatible with them. This reduces training time and costs associated with learning entirely new software platforms.
Security: You deal with highly sensitive data. Therefore you should ensure that your chosen tool provides ironclad security features to safeguard sensitive customer information. Not everyone in your company needs access to everything. The automation tool should provide access controls so you can restrict user permissions based on their role and responsibilities.
Scalability: Your desired tool should be able to keep up with the rate at which insurance businesses grow. You don’t want a situation where you introduce a new automation tool and quickly become the office hero, only for the automation system to break because of workload or an increase in the customer base
User-Friendliness: Choose a tool with a user-friendly interface that does not require extensive training. Each person on the IT team should be able to easily create their own workflows
The Cost Equation: Evaluate pricing models carefully. Consider upfront costs, subscription fees, and any hidden maintenance charges. Automation software that offers a pay-as-you pricing model is often a great choice.

5 Insurance IT Workflows You Can Automate Securely

Data Management: Extracting data, verifying accuracy, and manually updating multiple systems steal time meant for high-value tasks like customer service or risk analysis. Insurance IT workflow automation tools can extract data from various sources, eliminating human error. This leads to faster processing times, improved data quality, and reduced rework for your team.
Automating data management also enables you to consolidate information from various sources, providing a clear and unified view of your operations. This allows you to identify patterns, make data-driven decisions, and gain a competitive edge by tailoring your offerings to specific customer needs.
IT Support and Maintenance: IT teams spend a significant amount of time responding to individual user issues. These reactive tasks drain their time and resources, leaving little room for proactive maintenance or strategic IT projects. Automating this workflow enables IT teams to continuously monitor system performance and identify potential issues before they become major problems. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and ensures smooth operation.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Customer information often gets trapped in isolated systems like CRM software, making it difficult for IT teams to get a holistic view of a customer's history and needs. This leads to misalignment and frustration for both the customer and insurer. This can also make it challenging to personalize marketing campaigns or develop targeted products and services. Automating CRM systems enables IT teams to consolidate customer data from various sources, providing an all-around view of each customer. This enables insurance businesses to provide personalized services for customers without sacrificing efficiency.
Underwriting and Risk Assessment: Underwriting traditionally involves a manual review of various documents, leading to lengthy processing times. Manually analyzing vast amounts of data limits the ability to identify subtle patterns that can predict risk more accurately. Underwriters with different levels of experience may also make inconsistent decisions on similar risks. This can lead to unfair pricing for customers and increased risk exposure for the insurance company.Automating this insurance process enables you to collect and analyze data electronically, significantly reducing processing times. This improves customer satisfaction and allows you to issue policies faster. Using a set of predefined rules, you can ensure consistent risk assessments across the board, regardless of the underwriter's experience level.
Compliance and Reporting: Manually collecting, compiling, and formatting data for compliance reports is incredibly time-consuming. If your data is all over the place, it's difficult to gain a holistic view of the compliance level of your business. Therefore it becomes challenging to identify potential issues before they become major problems. Automating this process minimizes human error and ensures the accuracy and integrity of your compliance reports.This boosts investor confidence by demonstrating a commitment to transparency and accountability.

5 IT Workflow Automation Tools for Insurance Companies

Activepieces: Activepieces is an IT workflow automation tool that offers pre-built connectors to various data sources, allowing you to easily integrate your applications and consolidate data into a unified platform. It can be configured to maintain detailed logs of system access and changes, providing the audit trails necessary for compliance purposes. It prioritizes security and ensures that automation can be deployed either on the cloud or more securely on your own servers (on-prem). It is easy to use and enables everyone on the IT team to easily customize their workflows according to their roles without coding knowledge. It also offers a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Pega: Pega Platform helps to reduce administrative overhead and improve operational efficiency by automating repetitive tasks and workflows. The platform enables insurers to provide a seamless, digital customer experience by automating communication and follow-ups, improving response times, and enhancing transparency
Workato: Workato allows you to automate data exchange between systems, streamlining processes and eliminating manual data entry errors. Workato can be used to automate the collection, aggregation, and reporting of data required for regulatory compliance. This ensures timely submissions while freeing up resources to focus on other strategic initiatives.
Blue Prism: Blue Prism's platform allows users to quickly build and evolve AI-powered applications and workflows without extensive coding knowledge.
Automation Anywhere: The platform can streamline claims processing by automating data capture, validation, and integration with claims systems. Automation Anywhere integrates with various insurance systems, including policy management, claims processing, and underwriting platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What are insurance IT workflows?

Insurance IT workflows refer to the processes and tasks managed by IT teams within insurance companies, including data management, customer relationship management (CRM), underwriting, risk assessment, and compliance reporting. These workflows often involve managing large volumes of data, complex systems, and regulatory requirements.

2. Why should insurance companies automate IT workflows?

Automating IT workflows helps insurance companies improve efficiency, reduce manual errors, and optimize data management. Automation enhances customer satisfaction by speeding up processing times, reducing administrative burdens, and allowing IT teams to focus on more strategic tasks like innovation and growth.

3. What are the benefits of automating data management in insurance IT workflows?

Automating data management helps consolidate information from multiple sources, improves data accuracy, and eliminates human error. It enables insurance companies to process data faster, make better data-driven decisions, and provide more personalized services to customers.

4. Which insurance IT workflows are ideal for automation?

Key insurance IT workflows that can be automated include:

Data management
IT support and maintenance
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Underwriting and risk assessment
Compliance and reporting

These processes involve repetitive tasks that can be streamlined through automation, improving overall efficiency.

5. What should I consider when choosing an IT workflow automation tool for my insurance company?

When selecting an IT workflow automation tool, consider the following factors:

Compatibility: Ensure the tool integrates seamlessly with your existing systems.
Security: The tool should offer strong security features to protect sensitive customer data.
Scalability: Choose a tool that can grow with your business.
User-friendliness: Opt for tools that are easy to use for all team members.
Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate pricing models, including upfront costs and subscription fees.

6. How does automating IT support and maintenance benefit insurance companies?

Automating IT support and maintenance enables IT teams to proactively monitor system performance, identify issues before they become major problems, and reduce downtime. It also frees up resources, allowing IT professionals to focus on strategic initiatives rather than reacting to individual user issues.

7. What are the best tools for automating IT workflows in the insurance industry?

Some of the top IT workflow automation tools for insurance companies include:

Activepieces: A flexible, secure tool for automating data management and IT workflows.

Pega: Helps automate repetitive tasks and improve customer service.

Workato: Automates data exchange between systems and ensures compliance reporting.

Blue Prism: Enables users to build AI-powered workflows without coding.

Automation Anywhere: Streamlines claims processing and integrates with various insurance systems.