Albert Einstein, the Claims Summit and improving claims outcomes
Albert Einstein, the Claims Summit and improving claims outcomes | Insurance Business Australia
Technology
Albert Einstein, the Claims Summit and improving claims outcomes
“As Einstein said…”
Technology
By
Daniel Wood
“As Einstein said, and I’ll finish on this,” said Ron Arnold (pictured above), chair of the Claims Leaders Summit Australia. He wrapped up the event invoking the great theoretical physicist.
“If you keep doing the same thing and think you’re going to get a different result, then you’re probably wasting your time,” said the managing director of consultancy firm 11eight. “If you want to get a different outcome, you’re going to have to do something different.”
Arnold said Einstein “didn’t quite say it that way” but “that was the essence of his message.”
It was also probably the essence of the recent Claims Summit in Sydney. The event was about understanding industry-wide challenges facing claims stakeholders and learning about changes that can help provide solutions.
“They’re [insurers are] aware of this technology, but very few of them have actually implemented that technology,” said the solutions engineering manager, who presented the Tech Talk.
Neale said that after his presentation, a conference delegate commented to him that there were very few questions “because they [insurance firms] don’t know how to get started.”
“We need to build awareness on what’s possible and that’s part of this, it’s about showing people what’s possible,” said Neale.
Cloud overload
In terms of the tech available to help claims, Neale said it’s already powerful enough to overload the cloud.
“We require a lot of processing capability,” he said. “When you’re training or running AI models, there’s an enormous amount of technology required behind the scenes.”
Neale said sometimes his firm has faced shortages of cloud resources.
“People have said, ‘Can you slow down? Can you please stop what you’re doing? We don’t have enough!’” he said.
Important conversations
Darren Trott from Ambrose Construct Group was attending his firm’s stand. He said Ambrose was at the summit partly to network. He was very pleased with the results.
“There were probably two or three people [insurers] who were going to be here today and the conversations I’ve been able to have with them here justifies our investment being the event sponsor,” he said.
“I’ve already had two of the country’s largest insurers come to us and say, ‘Can Anthony [McLean] come and speak to our claims people?’” he said.
Trott said it’s also important for his firm to support the industry it works for.
“This event is bringing together claims people with experience from different parts of the world and different lines of business,” he said. “So what might work in motor could be done in property.”
Third parties and claims inflation
Daniel Lukich is sales and strategic relationship manager for AAMC, one of Australia’s largest providers of motor accident management services. His firm had a stand at the summit.
Lukich said he was pleased by what could be the beginning of growing industry awareness of how not-at-fault third parties being targeted by sections of the motor repair industry is causing big increases in claims costs.
He said a summit talk on global claims trends by McKinsey & Company partner Angat Sandhu supported what he’s said for many months.
“There’s been a growth in fraud, adding to claims inflation and growth in nefarious third-party activity through recovery firms,” said Lukich.
The increase in fraud, he said quoting Sandhu’s presentation, is expected to soon reach about 30%.
“There was a real trend around [insurers] adding value rather than cutting costs,” she said. “Whether it was with customer experience or managing suppliers or implementing technology, there was all this discussion around getting more bang for buck.”
Vilas Madan (pictured immediately below), technology firm EXL’s geography head for Australia and New Zealand, said the response from delegates at the summit was “great.”
“We know that the challenges today are around inflation, the cost of claims all the way to leakage reduction, to regulatory requirements,” said Madan. His firm provides insurance technology in the claims space for five “top insurers in Australia” he said.
Overcoming silos
Another firm working with big insurers was also present. John Beresford, sales director for Arturo Australia and New Zealand, was attending his stand.
He said Arturo works with IAG and Suncorp to provide property insights and also an “event management platform” that brings weather and property data together in one dashboard.
Beresford said this helps overcome a big issue facing many insurers: the challenge of putting siloed information together to get actionable insights, particularly when a large-scale event strikes.
“They’re scrambling around trying to cobble all this weather information, policy information, claims information and property information and trying to jam it together and get insights,” said Beresford.
“The beauty of it is that they have all their policy information and the property characteristics for an event – and they’re able to get a snapshot of their risk.”
Nearmap, Ambrose, Arturo, Arnie, AAMC and EXL were all sponsors of the summit.
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