Visual Intelligence and the Management of Home Claims

Digital transformation in the insurance industry isn’t this year’s trend, or an idea for the future. It’s a reality. And a reality that is reflected in an active, continuous, constantly evolving process that forces companies to keep up with the latest technologies and tools.

Home insurance is one of the vertical markets that is evolving the most, with the transformation affecting claims management in particular. Covid-19 and changes in the behaviours of policyholders are leading to an explosion in new technologies, such as Visual Intelligence, which are transforming the operations of companies.

Remote claims management

Lockdowns have forced us to change the rules of the game in home claims management. During those weeks in which we couldn’t leave the house, our pipes continued to burst, leaks came from the shower upstairs, the terrace tap broke, damp appeared on the wall of the neighbouring room, and so on. And all these problems still had to be solved, despite the lockdown. We needed our insurer to give us quick answers in order to solve these problems, also because we were at home more than ever.

How did insurance companies react to this new situation? Many of them realized that having solutions that could remotely identify damages was necessary in order to offer the best service to insured. And for this, Visual Intelligence technology has been key.

Those companies that have the technology to collect evidence of damage remotely - without experts having to make on-site, in-person evaluations - are already ahead of the game. In addition, Visual Intelligence software that automatically analyses the collected information, and provides outputs for agents, allows insurers to save resources, time and money:

• It shortens claim resolution times, as recommendations are given to insurance agents, allowing them to speed up decision-making, and quickly assign a greater or lesser degree of claim severity, depending on the particular damage reported.

• It reduces costs, as it can identify whether an expert should perform an on-site evaluation, or, instead, a technician should be sent to directly resolve the problem.

Changes in the behaviours of policyholders

Policyholders have changed the way they communicate with insurers. They no longer solely make phone calls. When they have a claim to make, insurees want to communicate with their insurance companies quickly and easily, and via chat with a real person, not a bot. Or by video call, which allows them to directly show the damage.

And this is really important, for example, in times of high demand, such as extreme weather events.

Not only the particular means of communication is important, but also its characteristics. It must be agile. It must be a direct and very empathetic exchange. Let’s not forget that, for insurers, policyholders should be the focus of their business.

This is why new technologies need to be incorporated in the global strategies of insurance companies, as they allow them to automate a large part of their business processes, and offer better service to their policyholders and a better response to their needs.