The Advantages of Digital Claims Processing

Highlights

$170 billion of global insurance premiums could be at risk in the next five years due to poor claims experiences.

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75% of customers are interested in being able to track claims progress using a website or app.

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Insurers who successfully leverage digital claims processing stand to reap major rewards in the months and years ahead, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Insurance customers have increasingly high expectations, and they won’t stick around when insurers offer poor or slow service. Effective digital claims processing can give insurers the edge they need to boost claimant satisfaction and policyholder retention.

Give Customers the Experience They Want

It’s hard to give your policyholders the time and attention they deserve when your team is bogged down with administrative tasks and inefficiencies.

According to a Nationwide Agency Forward Survey¹, 58% of customers like being able to speak to an agent or claims representative over the phone. At the same time, 75% are interested in being able to track claims progress using a website or app, and 68% of customers are interested in receiving recurring texts or email alerts about the status of their claim. And don’t forget about the importance of time to resolution: 74% want to have their claims handled quickly.

Claimants want a lot, and who can blame them? They’ve been steadily paying insurance premiums in order to be covered in the event of a claim. Already suffering a loss, they need their claim resolved fast, and they want to know what’s happening every step of the way.

The Drivers of Claimant Satisfaction

When policyholders are unhappy with the claims process, they tend to jump ship. Accenture² found that 77% of claimants who were dissatisfied with the way their last claim was handled planned to switch to a new insurer or had already done so. They estimate that up to $170 billion of global insurance premiums could be at risk in the next five years due to poor claims experiences. If insurers want to increase their retention rates, they need to understand the drivers of claimant satisfaction.

Hi Marley³ looked at nearly 25,000 customer surveys to figure out exactly what those drivers tend to be.

Among 5-star ratings, the main drivers were:

Timeliness of overall service, including fast responses and prompt resolution
Effective communication
An effective claims process with clear expectations
A positive or empathetic claims handling approach

Among 1-star ratings, the main issues were:

Untimely service, long wait times for responses and resolution that took too long
Infective or sub-optimal communication
A poor explanation of the claims process and a lack of expectations
Adjusters with a negative attitude or approach

Although there are multiple factors at play here, much of it comes down to communication. Per Accenture⁴, approximately 40% of inbound call volume is comprised of basic claims status inquiries. Policyholders want claims professionals to respond to their questions quickly and keep them in the loop. Per the Hi Marley study, poor communication was mentioned in 34% of 1-star reviews. If insurers want to improve their claims process, this is a logical place to start.

Insurers Need to Deliver More

P&C insurers have been dealing with innumerable hurdles that include supply chain issues, increased repair costs, challenging loss ratios and economic uncertainty – all contributing to longer claim cycles that understandably cause claimants concern. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that insurers haven’t been able to keep up with policyholder expectations. The 2022 U.S. Claims Digital Experience Study from J.D. Power⁵ reported that overall satisfaction with the digital claims process declined for a second consecutive year.

But there is a bright side. The study showed that customers are nearly two times more likely to say the claims process was quicker than expected when they are provided with regular status updates through insurer websites or mobile apps. As Mark Garrett, Director of P&C insurance intelligence at J.D. Power, explained: "It's important to get digital status updates right and have the proper frequency and information available to limit the need for the customer to call.” ⁶

Digital Offers More

Digital tools support the claims process to make it faster and more efficient. Digital tools can:

Accelerate FNOL intake to get claims off to a running start.
Enable faster and more convenient communications and documentation exchange.
Provide translations to keep language barriers from interfering with the claims process.
Enable sentiment analysis to detect customer frustration and/or communication breakdowns for quick resolution.
Drive accelerated claim payments that improve outcomes.

One Inc and Hi Marley: Delivering More

One Inc has partnered with Hi Marley to make it easy for insurers to get both the digital payment options and the digital claims processing abilities they need to boost claimant satisfaction and policyholder retention. Through an integration of our ClaimsPay® platform with Hi Marley’s two-way texting application, claim adjusters will have an easy way to engage claimants in conversations via text message and initiate claim payment. After the claims process is complete, the claimant receives a secure link that enables them to choose their preferred payment method. Once payment has been issued, policyholders receive a payment confirmation text in the same texting thread. That’s delivering more!

To learn more and discuss your digital payment needs, please call (822) 209-1688 or email inquiries@OneInc.com.

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