The Future of Insurance Is Paperless

The insurance industry has been collecting and managing massive amounts of data since long before the current era of big data began. 

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From refining risk assessments and actuarial calculations to documenting coverage parameters and the various accompanying obligations attached to both insurers and their customers, the insurance business heavily relies on a fine degree of detail which must be precisely spelled out in policy terms.

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As a result, of course, the paperwork involved in so many aspects surrounding insurance operations has historically been quite substantial and has typically required a significant number of labor hours to be sunk into tasks ranging from writing policies to claims filing and processing. 

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While there have been many technological innovations that have helped to ease this paperwork-heavy burden over the years, including everything from fax machines and early data processors to cloud-based storage and smart contracts, however, because of steep learning curves and an often piecemeal approach to paperwork solution adoption, the heavy paperwork load remains an issue across a large swath of the insurance industry still to this day.

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All that said, with the emergence and rise of intelligent document processing, the times may finally be changing. 

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By utilizing adaptive machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) can simulate a human-like approach to document interpretation, data entry, and analysis that requires very little actual human oversight and can produce results faster and with incredible accuracy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. 

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In order to fully understand the paperless revolution that may already be underway, it’s important to distinguish intelligent document processing from Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which is a far less advanced predecessor that falls short in many areas where modern intelligent processing is much better equipped to manage. For example, while RPA uses predetermined rules and templates to assess input information, IDP uses artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning techniques to interpret data that is presented in various, sometimes unstructured and/or inconsistently structured document formats, which enables IDP to effectively execute several tasks that were previously believed by many to be too complex for this kind of automation - including risk management, compliance, data extraction/classification/verification, and error reduction. 

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Among the top 5 ways that IDP is revolutionizing the insurance industry are:

• Processing Documents: By automating the matching, categorization, and verification of applications, claims, contracts, etc. IDP is streamlining the process of document management and submission;
• Administering policies: IDP is increasingly providing critical contributions throughout the policy lifecycle, inducing validating data and sending premium reminders to policyholders;
• Managing claims: By collectively handling documents that are coming in from various interest parties, IDP improves claims processing efficiency and minimizes the need for human oversight and intervention; 
• Underwriting: IDP extracts the pertinent data from input sources and incorporates that information when and where appropriate in downstream systems, which reduces the amount of time underwriters must spend on this type of redundant work and allows them to focus more of their time on the aspects of the underwriting process where they add the most value.
• Processing Invoices: Similarly, data extracted from invoices can be automatically incorporated into accounting and other relevant systems to lower the incidence of transcription errors and save a lot of data entry time. 

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Given these many advantages that intelligent document processing can bring to the insurance business from the standpoint of pretty much all stakeholders involved -  including clients, who benefit from improved service speed, accuracy, and customer service - it’s no wonder that the image of mountains of paperwork that has characterized the insurance industry for a long time is likely soon to be a relic of the past. 

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You can read more about this topic here. 

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