The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the importance of insurance companies maintaining consistent and clear communication with their policyholders. In fact, effective communication with insureds is critical during any time of crisis and especially during the filing of a claim. However, insurance companies are lagging in their adoption of digital processes that ensure the claims process is as smooth and transparent as possible for policyholders.
“Assuring policyholders that communications are there and things are running smoothly is really important to eliminate that friction for policyholders as they get the information they need on their policies or when they’re filing claims,” said Pamela Velentzas, corporate marketing and partner manager at Xpertdoc.
A new whitepaper from Xpertdoc, titled “Optimizing Your Customer Communication with Claims Process Automation,” identifies the key pain points that policyholders encounter during the claims process, and provides solutions for these challenges.
One of the pain points is the result of many insurance companies still relying on semi-manual methods to collect information from policyholders. According to the Xpertdoc whitepaper, while some insurers have adopted tools to address this expensive and time-consuming task, the end result is frequently a series of unconnected solutions. Moreover, though some parts of the claims process have been automated, human errors, duplication of effort, delays, or conflicting messages continue to be common occurrences, which in turn is frustrating for customers to deal with.
“Many carriers are moving to web forms, but many are still sending out forms that have to be completed and signed back,” explained Velentzas, adding that, as a result, there is a lot of information lost or entered incorrectly. “To streamline that, we’re pushing our clients who are carriers to go towards digital solutions to eliminate some of the manual errors that you see in the process.”
Some of these digital solutions include intelligent documents and automation. Some insurance companies are already turning towards claims automation solutions to build and configure flows that automate correspondence with policyholders at every step of the claims process. There are many benefits of this type of solution, such as the ability to streamline workflows.
In Xpertdoc Smart Flow, for example, the user can set up a document workflow that automatically sends that document for approval to the necessary department. “You can optimize the entire process by automating the steps in the claims process,” said Velentzas. “By automating the steps involved, you save time for the user and the policyholder gets the communications a lot faster.”
To learn more about the benefits of optimizing your customer communication with claims process automation and to download the free whitepaper, click here.
