FREMONT, CA: The insurance industry is in the middle of a radical, digitally infused shake-up. Its customers are embracing digital channels, and technologies are ushering in an era of hyper digitization.

For the digital age, the value an insurer can provide to its customers through the claims process needs to go beyond traditional claims management. This sets the inspirational goal of achieving omnichannel customer experience supported by intuitive digital means. Insurers must aim to adopt a faster, analytics-driven approach to claims handling and automate the processes. Along with working actively with customers to prevent claims, insurers should provide services that add value for and delight customers and think on customer feedback to improve service offerings, usability, and performance.

Redesign of the claims customer journey is at the core of the claim function’s digital transformation. There are no easy interactions that ensure customer satisfaction, but a successful redesign typically involves considering processes from the customer’s perspective and streamlining back-office processes to provide fast and straightforward claims services. The digital redesign of a claims processing needs to go much deeper than peripheral process improvements.

Customers demand fast and straightforward digital interactions, but intricate coverage details can emerge as barriers. So, it becomes essential for a carrier to find ways to simplify products and reduce product generations to ease the progress of fully digital customer journeys. Supporting the entire mission with automated, smart case management is also critical to establishing truly end-to-end digital customer journeys. Technologies like artificial intelligence help reduce manual touchpoints and significantly speeds up the claims process.

The digital world has raised the bar for performance, and insurers need to showcase intuitive and straightforward customer interfaces, and radically redesign their claims customer journeys to thrive in the market. Those who move swiftly and decisively to transform the claims function can equip themselves to deliver higher customer expectations while increasing efficiency and claims handling accuracy in the process.