Synthetic intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the group and voluntary advantages trade, notably throughout peak enterprise durations when human sources are stretched extraordinarily skinny and with a rising variety of generational segments as workers who’ve totally different wants.
By streamlining quoting, optimizing sources, and automating handbook duties, AI may help improve group insurance coverage gross sales, increase profitability, and enhance the shopper expertise. Because of this, 74% of insurance coverage executives are planning to extend their investments in AI. Insurers that seize this chance early on could have a essential benefit in assembly altering buyer wants, optimizing operations and driving development.
How can group and voluntary advantages insurance coverage suppliers leverage AI to maximise gross sales and stay aggressive?
Personalize and Advocate Alternate Plan Designs with AI
Conventional new enterprise and renewal processes might be time-consuming and end in missed alternatives. It’s useful for gross sales and underwriting groups to have data-backed reference factors when designing plans for purchasers.
Utilizing predictive analytics, insurers can shortly generate alternate plan designs utilizing one in every of their most respected belongings: knowledge.
Right here’s the way it works: utilizing an AI suggestion engine, carriers can use their historic gross sales knowledge to establish probably the most profitable offered plan designs for comparable purchasers. Advice engines, like these supplied by the Majesco International IQX Gross sales & Underwriting Workbench, will fetch knowledge for comparable teams (measurement, geography, trade) and recommend an alternate plan design that may be offered alongside the handpicked plan.
This acts as a strong benchmarking device whereas circumventing knowledge limitations in group insurance coverage as a result of it makes use of the service’s knowledge.AI will also be skilled to make options for upselling and cross-selling alternatives on non-compulsory worksite merchandise and enhance the plan member expertise whereas unlocking new income alternatives. Some components it’d take into account to suggest merchandise might embrace age, gender, exercise degree, job position, and extra.
These instruments not solely assist insurers faucet worthwhile current sources of income but in addition scale back the quote turnaround time, offering a greater buyer expertise.
Optimize Underwriting
Throughout high-load durations, the amount of quotes requiring underwriter assessment can decelerate processes as a result of an inefficient allocation of human sources.
Underwriters have various ranges of experience throughout totally different merchandise and quote complexities. Moreover, managers should take their current workload into consideration too. Because of this, quotes may be sitting for days and even weeks earlier than they are often circled.
AI can help underwriting managers in suggesting the best distribution of quotes throughout the underwriting crew, making an allowance for a person underwriter’s present capability, experience, and efficiency historical past.
Moreover, AI can prioritize quotes with the very best likelihood of closing primarily based on previous successes. By figuring out these useful resource efficiencies, insurers can write extra enterprise in much less time whereas enhancing shut ratios.
Optimize Operations by Automating Handbook Duties and Processing RFPs Sooner
The inflow of Requests for Proposal (RFPs) can produce undesirable friction and improve quote turnaround time. To assemble a gaggle advantages quote, gross sales and underwriting groups want to gather and course of a number of key items of knowledge from totally different sources. These might embrace previous plan booklets, coverage summaries, worker census recordsdata, prior claims expertise, and common shopper info (trade, measurement, location).
Right here’s the issue – these knowledge usually come in several codecs, and they’re usually not delivered within the type of structured knowledge. In different phrases, it can’t be robotically ingested by digital instruments. Because of this, underwriting groups lose numerous hours rekeying info into their inner methods.
That is the place AI is available in.
AI methods can extract info from dealer emails, attachments, and RFP supply recordsdata utilizing strategies like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to establish and course of unstructured knowledge trapped in PDFs, photographs, the “again of a serviette”, and different codecs.
Pure Language Processing (NLP) can be utilized to coach an AI system to learn an RFP booklet, study carrier-specific phrases and abbreviations, and generate a quote primarily based on the knowledge detected throughout the supply doc. These automated processes not solely save time but in addition scale back errors, offering an enhanced buyer expertise.
As soon as the uncooked knowledge has been captured, it may be transformed to structured knowledge within the insurance coverage firm’s format and despatched on to their quoting portal or underwriting workbench.
AI leveraged on this means can drastically lower the time it takes to assemble a gaggle advantages quote, contribute to improved shut ratios, and fosters higher relationships together with your distribution companions.
Leverage AI Chatbots to Drive New Income Alternatives
Gone are the times of clunky, irritating chatbots that pop up once you least need them. The discharge of ChatGPT within the fall of 2022 confirmed the true promise of generative AI.
By utilizing AI-powered chatbots, group insurers can present rapid help and solutions to buyer queries, offering a greater buyer expertise. These instruments might be skilled to study an insurance coverage firm’s merchandise, insurance policies, and common “language”, serving to clients absolutely perceive their advantages plan.
Chatbots will also be used to establish potential upselling and cross-selling alternatives for voluntary advantages, enhancing total gross sales and profitability. By integrating with well being knowledge suppliers (e.g., Fitbit) and behavioral knowledge instruments, this performance can change into much more customized, and tailor-made to the person’s distinctive state of affairs and targets.
Whereas brokers and brokers can’t provide customized recommendation to hundreds of particular person insureds with various wants and ranges of data, expertise can. Digital assistants and chatbots can present worthwhile steerage to plan members, answering questions, guiding them by the enrollment course of, and recommending new services primarily based on their well being and demographic info.
The most effective digital assistants are proactive, not reactive, offering useful nudges to customers on the proper time.
For instance, Solar Life’s AI-enabled “digital coach,” Ella, encourages plan members to take motion on necessary deadlines, cost-savings, and product choices. Ella’s proactive nudges resulted in practically two million extra interactions from plan members early within the pandemic from January to September 2020.
Solar Life’s funding in digital teaching paid off. Because of Ella’s interventions on the proper time to the best person, the corporate skilled an 83% improve in extra protection bought in comparison with the earlier yr. This success demonstrates the facility of digital assistants in offering customized schooling and steerage to insurance coverage clients.
Embrace the Potential
AI is poised to revolutionize the group insurance coverage trade, offering important advantages to each insurers and clients. By streamlining quoting, optimizing sources, automating handbook duties, and enhancing customer support, insurers can improve group insurance coverage gross sales, enhance profitability, and supply a greater buyer expertise.
The production-proven Majesco International IQX Gross sales & Underwriting Workbench has been adopted by 20+ main carriers throughout North America. To take your group and voluntary advantages enterprise to the following degree, the Majesco International IQX Gross sales & Underwriting Workbench presents a set of AI-powered instruments for worker advantages carriers. These embrace AI-assisted census file scrubbing, a predictive analytics suggestion engine to assist unlock optimum plan designs, AI-driven quote assignments, and extra. And take a look at this webinar[DG1] with Bryan Strang from Canada Life on the enterprise and buyer worth of AI-driven gross sales and underwriting workbench.
At present’s weblog is co-authored by Denise Garth, Chief Technique Officer at Majesco, and Mike de Waal, SVP Group Insurance coverage, Majesco.
[DG1]Underwriting within the Digital Age of Group, Voluntary Advantages and Worksite – Gaining a Aggressive Edge (majesco.com)