Steps for 2021 and beyond

For insurers looking to lead by 2025, your roadmap should focus on charting progress in all six of these key steps to maximize claims automation. However, to jumpstart 2021, we recommend focusing on these three areas as the short term and foundational priorities:

Expand virtual process and full claims automation — As the pandemic continues into 2021, the desire for customers to choose the virtual claims process for ease of service will continue. Insurers should look to expand on this opportunity by transforming the FNOL process to bring in real-time data and analytics to make the loss report process as simple as the virtual appraisal process is today. This is a critical step in the journey to full claims automation and a future touchless claims process for customers who prefer a total digital claims experience.
Digitize claim payments to meet the expectations of today's customers. The global reaction to COVID-19 has given consumers a heightened digital mindset. In fact, some businesses today due to COVID-19 are only accepting digital payments and refusing cash, so it's time for the insurance industry to more rapidly transform the paper check process to digital payments. It's not simply transforming to digital money transactions as this change also requires layering in cyber and digital security measures to ensure secure claim and money movement processing.
Simplifying the total loss claims process to provide a faster and more efficient customer claims experience is certainly past due. Just think, today customers can order a car online and have it delivered to their driveway within a day, but settling a total loss still takes weeks in many cases. Insurers that begin bringing in real-time data for total loss claims in 2021 will dramatically improve customer experience and improve retention for total-loss customers.

As many Americans adopt a more virtual experience in day-to-day necessities, the insurance industry needs to catch up in terms of offering the same type of virtual experience that many other industries already provide. Those that don't make progress towards a more automated claims process may be left behind, both by their customers and the industry at large.

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Predicting claims trends into 2025

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