Cost-justifying most any IT project often comes down to demonstrating a sound return-on-investment (ROI) or, in the insurance world, the percentage of gross written premium the solution represents vs. projected savings. By any measure, intelligent intake projects can deliver impressive results.
For insurers, much of the savings comes from making employees more productive – enough to increase process capacity by 4x, in fact. That means underwriters can quote and bind far more submissions – dramatically increasing the top line gross written premium figure. Claims handlers are likewise more productive, which reduces operational costs while keeping customers happy because they see claims processed faster.
How intelligent intake works
Intelligent intake involves using artificial intelligent technology to automate the processing of myriad documents involved in insurance claims and underwriting. Most insurers today dedicate significant human resources to what is a tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone job. Claims and underwriting associates must read incoming documents, categorize them, extract relevant information, and enter the data into a downstream claims handling system or underwriting workbench.
Previous attempts at automation have been stymied by the simple fact that most documents involved in claims and underwriting processes are unstructured. Reading them requires a level of intelligence that simply did not exist prior to the advent of AI technologies including natural language processing, machine learning, and large language models including ChatGPT and other generative AI models.
Intelligent intake makes these technologies widely accessible. The same associates who know your processes best use intuitive, powerful tools to build automation models that mimic how they process underwriting submissions and claims documents. They also monitor the models in action, acting as a “human-in-the-loop” to ensure model accuracy. Each correction or validation they make becomes part of the model, increasing its accuracy over time.
Related content: How automating claims intake streamlines settlements, saves time, and boosts customer satisfaction
Calculating ROI or percentage of GWP
Insurers can calculate the return on an intelligent intake investment by looking at what increasing process capacity can mean in practice.
For underwriters, consider the submission quote to conversion rate for a global property and casualty insurer that receives a quarter of a million submissions annually. Given its capacity constraints, it quotes only 40% of submissions and binds 20%. Let’s say that results in $18.6 billion in premium value and $372 million in profit.
A good intelligent intake solution can greatly increase the submission to quote conversion rate, from around 10 days to less than a single day. That means carriers can quote – and win – far more business.
In the example above, an increase of 50% in the submission to quote conversion, a perfectly reasonable goal, would mean the company is now quoting over 65% of underwriting submissions. At the same 20% bind rate, the carrier would be looking at nearly $30 billion in GWP value and about $590 million in profit. That increase in profit of more than $200 million makes the ROI readily apparent.
It’s also important to point out the carrier is achieving all these gains with no increase in headcount. Using Indico Data as an example, our intelligent intake customers on average see an 85% reduction in process cycle times and a 4x increase in process capacity. Simply put, that means intelligent intake makes all of your employees far more productive, whether they’re handing underwriting submissions or claims.
To see for yourself how intelligent intake and process automation can help increase your GWP numbers and deliver rapid ROI, sign up for a free demo of the Indico Unstructured Data Platform or contact us with any questions.
