Today, each industry is being flown away by the wave of digitization, where the insurance industry is breaking this wave by upgrading its traditional approach to the customer-centric approach. With the use of new digitized business models, insurers are expanding their sales and service channels to engage their audience and enable its strong online presence.

The digital transformation holds innumerable opportunities for the insurers in providing an enthralling experience to its customers and prospects ranging from product inquiry to purchase to claims.

The latest InsurTech models use technologies like AI/ML, etc. that help health agents offer customized products to customers based on their data. Further, people can compare various offerings with other businesses and buy their products accordingly.

It is vital for the insurers to recognize critical areas that need to be backed by technology helpful in delivering efficient care and insurance benefits to its consumers.

Key use cases across the health insurance industry

Health insurance companies have identified three major themes towards boosting policyholders’ health and wellness thereby leading them to achieve faster ROI.

Remote Health Monitoring

 

Remote monitoring is assisting patients situated in a rural area of a country to connect with world-renowned medical experts and get immediate treatment. Tech giants like Apple have already partnered with hospitals and medical insurers to connect their user’s health data recorded on the wearable like Apple watch.

• Anthem teamed-up with American Well and Samsung to offer telehealth service to policyholders with Samsung phones enabling 24/7 healthcare.

 

Customer Experience

 

Insurers are providing real-time interactions like current payment status, immediate assistance for any query, etc. to make customers’ tasks easier and enhance their experience. It’s imperative for insurers to understand customer needs and become their trusted advisor.

• Cigna has partnered with Clare.AI to build a chatbot that gives customers access to information & services, enabling them to find a doctor and acquire instant medical advice.

 

Front and Back Office Operations

 

Automation of Front and Back office operations has led to faster processing of information like patient data and present policy recommendations based on their health condition. This is increasing operational capability equipped with new technologies across the front, middle, and back offices.

• Aviva deployed AI-enabled Appian’s platform to unify 22 systems in a single interface and ease their call center operations thereby increasing customer response efficiency by nine times.

 

Three Common Approaches to Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Though transforming as a digital insurer holds immense potential, the biggest question is “How do the insurers attain digitization and use the opportunities towards building competitive advantage?”

There are three broadly classified methods where partnerships with technology service providers, start-ups and/or healthcare firms result in successful digital transformation stories.

• Off-the-shelf software solutions integrate readily with third-party systems and do not require time-consuming custom development. However, this also means that they are not tailored for unique aspects of the business, may contain unwanted features.
• Platform solutions leverage aspects of both custom and off-the-shelf deployment. By leveraging a platform like Appian, customized processes can be built on an off-the-shelf platform. This approach will require external configuration from consultants familiar with their industry and the technology.
• Service Providers can design Custom solutions that avoid ‘off-the-shelf software’ solution issues by creating a customized software solution built from scratch for a company. However, these remedies are a bit costly leading to the accumulation of extensive time and resources.

 

Critical digitization needs for a seamless transition

As daunting as the challenges sound, digital winners have already started cracking the nut in the health insurance industry with such approaches. Companies are choosing digital use cases that reap them faster ROI.

Several elements of a winning formula that can help payers gain traction in this digital insurance ecosystem are:

• Customer is the foundation: Starting from the customer, it is important to prioritize their journey providing end-to-end solutions with a ‘wow’ experience.
• Innovation Models: Traditional players will need to become more flexible and transform their legacy models into customer-centric models.
• Demystifying data silos: It is important to build a cross-functional team and communicate with clear insurance objectives to generate valuable insights.
• Manage talent: Hiring and retaining digital talent while adding new leaders into the organization broadens the capacity to fulfil current customer demands.
• Adopt new ways of working: New approaches, including design, agile method can be used to shatter organizational silos and improve a payer’s speed to market.
• Products and Services that are more Consumer-Centric: The insurance offers that consumers will have access should be tailored based on their fundamental needs.
• Look outward and partner heavily: The digital ecosystem is dynamic. Therefore, payers must keep an eye on emerging technologies and potential partners across the value chain.

Draup, a sales-enablement platform provides critical insights on InsurTech use cases and discovers health firm needs to give remedies accordingly. Service Providers can become valuable partners for insurers who are trying to get the digital transformation going meeting the health insurance needs of the population.