Business Process Automation: What benefits does BPM have to offer the insurance industry?

Seamless user experience, omnichannel customer relations, real-time case tracking, instant responses... Faced with increasingly demanding consumers, the insurance industry needs to continue its focus on digital transformation to build customer loyalty and make a difference in a highly competitive market. 83% of policyholders are ready to change their insurer the year following a bad claim experience. Fortunately, this is precisely where automation of business processes (using Business Process Management or BPM) stands out to elevate competitiveness for insurance providers.

The insurance sector is today deluged with a massive amount of heterogeneous data from both external and internal sources. CIOs can reasonably expect, in this context of big data, that any process that includes manually handling this flood of information brings a high risk of claims management issues and degraded customer relationships. Automating business processes is no longer an option! 

Ready to automate? Here are the 4 key benefits of business process automation for CIOs in the insurance industry.

Deploy a unified global vision to better monitor claims

Fewer than one in four insurers (22%) now believe that their claims management processes are effective compared to their competitors. Why? The primary reason is, with omnichannel relationships, the information collected through multiple channels (email, social networks, telephone, website, mobile application, etc.) is still too often dispersed among different information systems. Further, this information is being processed in unconnected or non-integrated applications. With scattered data and multiple disconnected applications, it is impossible to have a real-time view of customers’ requests progress. As a result, incomplete and incorrect files affect the quality of the follow-up and slow down claims processing.

Use of a BPM-based process automation platform like Bonita to create linked processes that can easily access a provider’s other key information systems offers a global and unified view of customer data to the stakeholders who need it, which in turn optimizes the processing time of each task throughout the chain. A streamlined approach to processes means better profitability, traceability and agility across the entire company.

Disseminate operational excellence throughout the company

Another advantage of BPM is the ability to address all stages of the customer journey, from purchasing an insurance policy or a business risk policy, to the handling and resolution of customer requests (quotes, accidents, legal and property protection, and so on). The key: by bringing smooth, consistent information exchange and dissemination, you ultimately improve both customer service (and respect your SLAs), while improving overall operational excellence within the organization.

Proof by example: How Alptis leveraged BPM
The use of BPM to deliver applications faster through flexibility and agility is a promise that delivers results. CIOs can speed up their response time to requests from business users and end customers.
The French insurance provider Alptis has developed six applications using the Bonita platform: external enrollments, management of business activities, individual enrollments, group enrollments, claims management, and complaints management.
To learn more about the benefits that this insurer has seen with BPM, read their success story.

Reduce manual errors and fraud

As the saying goes, to err is human. By automating the processing of paper documents and the verification of supporting documents, BPM helps reduce the number of errors, and at the same time makes fraud less likely. This is a key point, as insurance fraud doubled in 2022: 20% of policyholders say they have already committed fraud (all insurance policies combined), 9 percentage points more than in 2021. One important advantage of automation: it is easier to detect certain inconsistencies in customer data such as  attempts to falsify documents, at all stages of the customer journey (policy purchase, claims, policy changes or cancellation, invoices for replacement, repairs, or other treatments of insured items).

Better compliance and risk management

The insurance and financial sectors are particularly subject to a considerable number of strict regulations. CIOs who implement a process-based platform for automation and integration are able to be more agile with constant regulatory changes. Monitoring certification procedures through automation facilitates better process traceability. By consolidating all audit information into a single interface, BPM supports effective financial risk management and ensures compliance.

Proof by example: How MAIF uses Bonita to automate monitoring and reporting
Within the framework of the European Solvency 2 regulations, French insurer MAIF wanted to deploy a new system for monitoring and reporting tasks. Objective: to streamline their processes, and be able to trace data and calculations along the way. They chose to use the Bonita process automation platform.

10 to 55% of insurance processes (especially underwriting, claims processing, record keeping, and invoicing) will be automated in 2023, for all the reasons outlined above. 

Here are 3 ways to learn more:

1. Build highly personalized, process-based applications today, for free, with our open source Bonita Community Edition.
2. See how you can reinvent your business processes with BPM.  Watch our on demand Bonita Platform Demo.
3. Interested in full project lifecycle support and services from development to operations? Try unlocking the power of Bonita Enterprise Edition.  Contact us to learn more.