With the pace of change accelerating, Insurance companies are striving to become data and tech-driven. The race is on to engage customers and close the protection gap.  

At DIA Amsterdam 2022 you can learn more in UiPath’s Deep Dive Talk where Elaine will share how UiPath and Generali Vitality have implemented AI and Intelligent Automation.  

We spoke to Elaine Mannix, Global Insurance Lead at UiPath – one of the partners of DIA Amsterdam 2022. Elaine shared with us her perspective on how Intelligent Automation can boost and benefit the future of insurance.  

You being the expert on this, how do you look at AI and Intelligent Automation? 

RPA efficiently connects functions and systems, enables AI where it matters and is intimately woven into human processes. Intelligent Automation and AI provide an agile, cost-effective enabler for the future of insurance: supporting growth, optimizing costs, risk management, improved compliance and improved customer and employee experience.  It is a marriage made in heaven for Insurance. 

Intelligent Automation and AI are joining forces in customer journeys across the full value chain of insurers. They help insurance companies to expand their engagement, products, services and partner integrations to meet changing customer expectations. And this is relevant for both personal lines and commercial lines.  

How does this leverage the trends you see? 

Quoting some other sources like McKinsey, who are saying that AI is becoming part of a modern stack for insurance as one of the key ‘strategic technologies’. Or Forrester, who claims that API’s and ComputerVision support access to data in legacy systems.  

Adding an intelligent layer allows insurance companies to operationalize change by bringing in the right data, to the right person, at the right time. Also, the intelligent layer enables insurance companies to combine internal and external data to add insights to every customer interaction. Human interaction combined with Intelligent automation means that every decision and action can be used to update AI models and improve future interactions.  

And last but not least, customers get better engagement and response times through multiple 24/7 channels, bespoke products for their needs, improved services like personalised loyalty programs that promote healthier lifestyles and longer lives e.g. by giving relevant discounts and products for healthy choices. 

Can you give some examples of this? 

Intelligent Automation supports insurance companies to integrate and make consolidated data available, in real-time and with a 360 customer view. These firms are benefiting from data through connections to IoT devices for people, homes, cars and businesses, and from integrated services using data from internal and external data sources like partners.  

In your opinion, what is the industry heading to? 

In our view, AI will create the digital workforce of the future that sits alongside humans and interacts with and supports humans to deliver all the customers’ needs. Of course, the challenge will always (or at least for a while) be to access real-time accurate data to use across the full value chain. But what will help overcome this challenge is a clear focus and a culture of change and innovation sponsored from the top and collaboration with partners including insurtechs.   

This is not easy. Insurance companies are traditionally not tech-led, nor are they open to change. It is not their core business, which means that insurtechs are bringing solutions and a new mindset to the industry. This creates ecosystems that are helping Insurance companies to think digital-first and learn by doing and making mistakes.  

And what do you see or expect in society?  

The future health and wellbeing of our people and our planet involves everyone working together to create a fair and just society. Governments will need to work with the Financial Sector to provide a safety net for society. Insurance plays an important role, in providing protection for all.  Prevention services take an accelerated role in supporting and enabling longer, healthier lives. Illness can push many into poverty which means that we need to step up and provide affordable insurance for the uninsurable. The industry will only be able to do this with systemic changes across all stakeholders.  Tech will be the enabler offering cost-effective products on a local level, where people do not have bank accounts, only a mobile phone.   

Who is UiPath? 

UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for intelligent automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of intelligent capabilities that can improve insurance operations’ agility, speed in response time, and get customer-facing digital capabilities up and running faster.  

For more information about their presentations go here!