It’s not quite CAT season, but the storm is near. I’m not talking about tornados in the Great Plains, hurricanes on the East Coast, or wildfires in the West. For the insurance industry, the storm is the variability that comes with CAT events and it includes the headwinds carriers face on even the sunniest of days.
On an average day, any of the following variables can send the claim in a different direction. In CAT events, they can quickly overwhelm carrier systems and teams.
- FNOL: Cause/date/type of loss, parties involved, injuries sustained, make/model, shingles/flat roof, and the list goes on and on . . .
- Fraud: Scoring, history, background check
- Policy: Coverage verification, PIFs in the impact area
- Resources: Capacity, licensing, vacation calendars
- Vendor Management: Coverage area, load balancing, specialties
- Imaging: Satellite, aerial, gig-worker, insurer-provided, etc.
The key to successful claims management is sorting through all of this information instantly. If an organization invests in the tools to do this but doesn’t invest in fully operationalizing them, it’s really just investing in lag time.
Let’s take it from best-case to worst-case scenario in how a carrier team integrates information.
Worst case: staff is looking in one system and manually inputting information into the next system. That’s swivel chairing and is a giant red flag. One step above that is a basic, one-way integration: data from system A populates in system B, but that’s it. The data is there, but someone still has to know to look for it and how to leverage it.
Your goal is operationalization, where information can flow back and forth between systems, dynamically update, and lead to appropriate action based on real-time updates. Better yet, your system can do all of this while your staff is at home sleeping each night, even in the middle of a CAT event.
Not only is this automation better for your team and bottom line, it’s better for your customers. How are you working toward improving claims triage and assignment during CAT events? Let us know at [email protected] or reach out to see how we can help.
