What is P&C automation?
P&C automation primarily uses robotic process automation (RPA or bots) in the areas of underwriting, policy processing, and claims. Manual processes performed by humans increase cycle times and errors, and add overhead costs to basic business processes. As a result, P&C automation is becoming an area of increasing focus for many insurers. Piloting and deploying bots is on the rise as property and casualty insurers look for ways to optimize their operations. More than a peripheral trend, P&C automation is expected to become “business as usual” over the next few years. In fact, The Digital Insurer estimates that bots will soon handle 80% of all underwriting.
What are the business benefits of P&C automation?
P&C automation provides many business benefits, including:
- Cost reduction: By replacing error-prone manual processes with P&C automation, insurers can reduce the number of staff needed to work on mundane activities. Applying automation through bots and artificial intelligence (AI)—especially in the areas of renewal processing, claims, billing and finance operations—can eliminate manual paperwork.
- Improved efficiency: Unlike humans, bots can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they never need time off. By working faster and more efficiently, P&C automation can reduce lengthy close cycles between brokers, agents and policyholders, as well as help insurers boost productivity levels.
- Better use of resources: P&C automation is not just a cost reduction play. Employees who would have worked on mundane activities can be retrained or reassigned to other positions that add value to the business, such as helping customers or providing field service support. An emerging application for P&C automation is using bots to handle first-line customer interactions, freeing up agents and brokers to focus on more strategic work.
- Increased scalability: Using bots makes it easy to quickly respond to changing market conditions for insurers. Adding computing and processing power to accommodate rapid business growth is much easier with P&C automation when compared to trying to recruit, hire and train staff.
