Insurance
The application of Artificial Intelligence to automate insurance processes is already a reality and the case of ARAG proves it.
Processes are the engine that drives the business. And to tune that engine is to improve the business, either to increase it or to make it more efficient. Evolution is a constant in the history of mankind and technology has been its eternal ally. Today, the game changer is Artificial Intelligence.
Processes are supported by documents, since the information resides in them. But how to convert that document into actionable data? Traditionally, in back offices and BPOs, teams of operators were formed to validate, classify or extract information to enter it manually into the system. More documents meant more operators, i.e. more cost and more complexity in scaling.
But robotization is not the same as automation: applying rules does not work in a real world full of exceptions. This is where Artificial Intelligence shines and Serimag has been implementing the TAAD system in demanding environments for 10 years. Based on in-depth training, it analyzes the documents and finds the necessary patterns that will help you to perform the tasks automatically when putting them into production. The same document that used to travel to an operator now reaches an automated system with greater availability and ease of escalation.
AI technologies within TAAD could be described as neural networks, machine learning, computer vision or natural language processing. But the differential value of Serimag lies in the knowledge of its application in the companies’ business. It is not only about applying technology, but also about understanding the process and the document in order to know how to choose the right technique for each case.
Being a process automation supplier for CaixaBank, Santander or BBVA is an indicator of the levels of excellence achieved. During 2020, more than 400 million pages were processed (more than 1 million per day) resulting in a 50% reduction in costs and an 80% improvement in SLAs. In addition to the inherent better control of data and regulatory compliance.
The insurance sector is one of the most sensitive to documentary processes, such as claims on-boarding, which require documents to be processed as quickly as possible in order to provide a rapid response to customers and brokers at one of the most critical points in customer service. This was one of the reasons why ARAG several years ago, ARAG opted for automation through Serimag’s services.
In ARAG’s operations there is a lot of interaction with the client and the documentation provided, therefore, the document is one of the critical elements to control and standardize. A study of the process determined the key points to be transformed. First classifying the documents from a centralized mailbox to determine the branch to which they belong, and then extracting the necessary information from each document to feed the management systems.
The aim was not only to be more agile, but also to eliminate errors, and this technology, with AI in continuous learning, also makes it possible to anticipate operational incidents by detecting if a transaction contains incomplete or incorrect documents and then sending them back to the client requesting their correction.
For Guillermo Herrera, CIO of ARAG, “the implementation of this technology has meant a boost in the speed of response we have with our client”. He also assures that “maintaining these processes manually through operators would have been costly and error prone”. In this sense, the company has been innovating for years in this sector with different technologies and indicates that “joining these new technologies is a necessity, but the choice of supplier is crucial to ensure that the pilot is transformed into a productive process with the desired results”. Guillermo points out: “Serimag’s value lies not only in its constantly evolving IA and technical knowledge, but also in its experience in terms of business, flows and document processing that we require”.
“There were no major hurdles beyond what was already known in terms of the quality of the documentation received, but TAAD technology helped to jump over these kinds of hurdles” according to Toni Pagès, Head of IT Applications at ARAG. “The initial objectives were met and we are working to see new applications of this technology in other areas as part of our continuous improvement process,” says Guillermo Herrera.
Finally, Guillermo Herrera comments that “AI will continue to evolve, making new leaps linked to the logical and physical evolution of the systems that support them, and the constant learning of these, but one must be prudent in the applications, and most importantly, never obviate the responsibility of controlling their application and execution in the business by the owners of the processes and data.”
