Sydney's Appsure wins US travel insurer client
Insurtech Appsure’s automated high-tech travel claims system has been implemented at US insurer Trawick International, in what it expects will be the start of an international expansion.
Locally, Appsure counts Hollard, Auto & General and Fastcover among its clients, and aims to be the premier travel insurance claim system in the world.
Director David Phipson tells insuranceNEWS.com.au the team are specialists in machine learning and automation and Appsure is fast gaining credibility among top insurers as the client base grows, both in travel insurance and other lines of business.
“The level of sophistication and automation in our travel claims solution is really starting to be recognised,” Mr Phipson said, adding Hollard had been a “great anchor client”.
“In Australia, we’ve had significant players come on to the platform. Now demonstrating that we can succeed in America with large clients like Trawick is a big step forward for us.”
Appsure’s automated system went live at Trawick at the start of this month after being adapted to integrate with both the medical provider network and also to medical repricing agents. In the US, some travel insurers like Trawick also insure visitors to America.
“It was a big effort,” Mr Phipson said. “A key industry player said, ‘Look, this can’t be done, no one has before’. But to their credit, Trawick senior management saw the opportunity. We worked with them and built it in a year and it’s up and working. They can now handle travel insurance, and pretty much domestic medical insurance, all in the one platform.”
Trawick had previously been using several different platforms to process a claim. Its senior executives “immediately recognised the potential” of Appsure’s full insurance lifecycle software platform from policy to claim and payment, he says.
“It does everything from the online claims, adjudication – it has machine learning plug ins, all sorts of validations, does the payments, automatic communications, emails, integration to clients – it does the lot all in one platform.”
Mr Phipson, who has formerly done extensive technology overhaul work at NSW’s icare, says Appsure automates exchange-rate calculations and scanning of supporting documentation in any language, saving assessors time.
Since covid, many travel insurers are short staffed and welcome the ability of technology to fill the void, he says.
“Having the system automatically process claims took on added urgency they never had before.”
The high volume, low value nature of the bulk of travel insurance claims makes the potential for automation particularly alluring, Appsure says, and its platform can be used across the whole claim lifecycle, or for certain modules only.
“There’s a level of agility and dynamism in that space that suits our business. That’s what we like to do,” Mr Phipson said.
