4 areas where digital twins could help insurers
In this series, we’ve been looking at the value digital twin data can bring to the insurance business. Specifically, I see there being four main areas where insurers could take advantage of digital twins to make material improvements.
1. Distribution
Insurers, particularly those with personal lines, have already made good strides when it comes to using data to improve distribution. They’ve focused on creating a digital copy of the book of business and been building digital twins of customers based on their online activities, search habits and where they shop.
While this greater understanding the customer journey is helping insurers be more efficient and contextually relevant in selling, leading insurers are taking things a step further. They’re looking to offer one-click purchases and an omnichannel ecosystem so customers can move seamlessly between channels.
But there are additional opportunities for insurers to improve how they service existing customers and for cross-selling. The more you know about the customer on the phone, the better you can provide targeted advice and services.
For example, imagine if you had digital twins not only for the customer but also for their insured assets and for external events affecting their decisions or their assets. You could pull these threads together into a much more comprehensive view and use that to provide a superior experience.
2. Underwriting
In underwriting, real-time streaming data could provide a more nuanced understanding of risk and improvements in pricing. Leading insurers are also looking to offer customers real-time risk prevention and risk-DNA-based insurance—in an effort to be a more holistic provider of protection for their customers, not just a business that pays you when something bad happens.
For commercial lines insurers, while getting a more homogenous data set across customers may be a challenge, I believe the benefits will be worth it. We’ve seen it already for workers’ compensation, with payroll and ERP integration helping carriers to understand the changing workforce, associated premium changes and reducing the need for premium audits. I recommend commercial insurers explore this in the terms of coverage (property, liability) and sector (energy, construction, marine).
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3. Operations
Within the four walls of an insurance carrier, there’s a material opportunity to drive efficiency and enhance decision-making by adding connected instruments throughout the enterprise. Accenture’s Operations business has proven this over the years in corporate functions like Finance, HR and Procurement. Now is the time to turn attention to the more traditional core insurance functions of distribution support, underwriting, claims and back-office administration functions.
With building a digital twin of the operation, two streams of benefit quickly start to emerge:
Automation opportunities come with the traditional analysis of keystrokes and process steps.
Intelligence opportunities come when you look at how to use that data differently. This is likely where the larger value comes from.
As an example, imagine if you could take a digital mailroom capability that scans and stores digital copies of physical documents and turn it into something that fundamentally triages and automates work differently based on the type of document and where that customer is in the transaction process.
4. Claims
More efficient and faster claims processing is another area where I see tremendous opportunities for taking advantage of digital twins. We’re already noticing leading insurers seeking real-time coverage optimization, integrated restoration infrastructure and the use of human + AI to improve the employee and customer experience.
For example, imagine that you offer personalized auto insurance and one of your customers is involved in an accident. Think about the insights you could gain if had access to:
Telemetry data indicates what was happening with the car at the time of the accident—the way the wheels were turning, the speed of the car and how hard the driver was braking.
Weather patterns that explain the driving conditions when the accident occurred.
Information on the driver such as how well they slept last night and whether they were distracted by something they saw or by talking with a passenger.
Service data such as how long it will take to get the car repaired, how long the wait time is for the parts you need and whether you are connected with your own service fulfillment supply chain through your network partners.
The more you delve into the details, the more possibilities you can see to take advantage of digital twin data across the insurance business.
In our final post in this series, I’ll look at how you can put intelligent digital twins to work to gain a better view of your business.
To learn more about the technology trends expected to impact insurers, read our report: Technology Vision for Insurance 2021
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