Financial Services is one of the most challenging industries from a technology standpoint. Between regulatory compliance requirements and the pace of digitalization, not to mention upstart competitors, it’s vital that companies leverage the latest technologies to remain viable. Without digitization, time-consuming activities slow business to a crawl, and decision-making can end up based on data rather than insights. If unaddressed, these blockers can prevent financial-services companies from unlocking real value in the market. 

Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can help address these issues. This is particularly true for the insurance industry, with its multi-generation customer base and a complex broker ecosystem where processes are not always standardized. For example, brokers send quotes to insurance companies in random formats and through different channels, often requiring significant manual effort to gain actionable insights. And one survey showed that 30-40% of an underwriter’s time is spent on administrative tasks. AI and ML can make these processes partially or fully automated, transform random data into decision-making information, and upgrade pricing capabilities through ML models. In short, they can empower insurance companies to make smarter decisions.

How AI Can Reimagine Insurance Processes

Taking this game-changing approach isn’t hard, but it requires the right AI/automation tools such as Wipro Holmes, and the right expertise. Mindful that thousands of financial-services organizations use Salesforce, Wipro has created a solution based on Salesforce’s Financial Service Cloud and Wipro Holmes, our augmented-intelligence platform.

For both case handlers and underwriters, the use of AI can automate processes by retrieving data from emails and documents sent by brokers. AI expedites the review process by automatically providing insights about what information needs validation with a complex risk assessment and score calculation.

When a broker sends an email requesting a quote for an insurance policy, an AI tool like Holmes captures the email and processes all the information, including from attachments. It could then automatically create a case in a CRM tool like Salesforce, filling-in all the relevant and available information. The case handler would be automatically notified of the request and could review the automatically retrieved information. An automated user interface (UI) supports the entire process, with features such as the ability to visualize where specific data was retrieved, identify external sources used to validate data (like the Customer Commercial Name or VAT Number), or highlight updates sent by the broker during the validation process.

Once the validation process is completed, the case is auto-assigned to an underwriter. During this assignment process, the Holmes platform validates all the information available in Salesforce regarding the quote request and the customer. Based on the risk assessment model that was previously configured (for example, it is possible to set up categories and weights), the platform calculates a score associated with this quote. An underwriter can then drill down into distinct categories and evaluate the calculated score to gain more insightful information before providing a quotation for the requested policy.

Case handlers and underwriters both leverage Salesforce or another CRM tool to manage the entire process, while an AI tool like Wipro Holmes uses data from various sources to generate insights in the background.

Trusted Automated Intelligent Solutions

This reimagined process expedites administrative tasks and allows case handlers and underwriters to make faster and smarter decisions. Applicable to most financial-services markets, the solution can also act as a baseline to embrace AI incrementally throughout a company and ecosystem, eventually enabling leaders to extend AI and ML to every business line (e.g. cybersecurity, customer support, or compliance). 

Historically, insurance and other financial-services companies have struggled to overcome blockers and embrace innovative technologies that can improve their business. Augmented intelligence solutions such as this combination of Salesforce’s Financial Service Cloud and Wipro Holmes provide an avenue to achieve significant workflow improvements while demonstrating how to make AI an ally.