Business intelligence – A way forward for the insurance industry

In today’s digital age, data is arguably the most valuable asset of any industry. The same is true in the case of insurance. From actuarial data to customer claim data, the insurance industry is a good example of where data is being leveraged to make reliable business decisions. 

Since the insurance industry is based on risk, it’s a natural fit for modern-day business intelligence tools. The insurance provider can uplift the customer experience, reduce fraud, and take informed customer decisions for a seamless business experience.  

A glance at claim analytics and BI for the insurance industry 

Gartner defines Claims Analytics as “the use of business reporting through dashboards, data mining, and predictive modelling to manage and analyze the claims data”. 

Claims analytics delivers quicker, improved performance, and its core there are three core processes that support claims analytics tools: 

• Claims analysis 
• Reporting  
• Predictive modelling 

6 game-changer business intelligence benefits 

Take a moment to explore these benefits of business intelligence tools for the insurance industry.

• Risk management & underwriting 

Typically, insurance providers have had in-depth data about their customers and claims they have used to support future underwriting. By definition, insurance underwriting is a way insurance companies assess the risks and profitability of offering a policy to someone. 

Modern business intelligence tools can provide insurance providers with real-time data visualization and predictive models to improve the accuracy of the underwriting process. The service provider can directly fetch data to understand cost ratio, policy growth, and cost per claim. This in-depth understanding also allows companies to price their premiums better and improve the customer experience. 

Yet, insurers are already using IoT capabilities to simplify the underwriting and claims process. Providers can also uplift the power of business intelligence to extract actionable insights based on predictive modelling. By doing so, they can position themselves better to adopt better risk management policies. 

• Fraud detection 

Insurance fraud is the deliberate submission of fake or false information by policyholders for financial gain. Fraud detection is an essential domain to manage for any insurance provider. A robust capacity to detect irregularities assists insurance firms in identifying suspicious instances and avoiding costly payouts for false claims. 

Thankfully, modern business intelligence tools can help solve this problem with their ability to recognize fraud in any shape. Fraud detection tools assess fraud from techniques like predictive modelling, data mining, statistics, AI/ML, and deep learning to identify fraudulent claims earlier in the claim cycle. By presenting the information via an intuitive dashboard and interactive visualization, end users can recognize a pattern pointing to fraudulent activity and set up alerts based on those patterns. 

• Data storage 

Insurance companies have to store a massive amount of data. For example, providers collect complete information like family background, claims history, and reimbursements. This data is used every time, before and after enrolling the customer in any plan. 

Business intelligence in the insurance industry enables the data storage process in more efficient ways. Insurers can set up a modern data warehouse to optimize all their data on cloud platforms. Virtualization tools can keep data stored on remote servers. Data access can be managed based on the authorization level of the users. Claims adjusters have access to assigned claims, whereas the financial domain has access to reporting to make strategic business decisions. 

• Dynamic customer engagement 

Competitors can be an obstacle for any industry because their objectives are the same. That’s why seamless customer engagement is necessary. According to a report by KPMG, customer experience is one of the most valuable KPIs to measure insurance performance. 

Insurance companies are always in a race to introduce and bring more offerings to the market, pushing sales teams to make fast and accurate recommendations to customers to achieve their goals. When it comes to leveraging the customer experience, the use of predictive analytics in insurance is far-reaching. 

• Sales and distribution 

Sales and other representatives need information at their fingertips. Here, business intelligence solutions can offer real-time access that is readily available and can generate detailed visualizations and depict customized offers and previous performance, all in real time. 

From buying patterns to demographics and quote analysis, the performance of sales managers and representatives can easily be determined. Furthermore, an organization can address the areas in which it requires attention as well as growth opportunities. 

• Cross-sell opportunities 

In addition, companies can utilize business intelligence to monitor market trends to identify cross-sell opportunities. Quick reporting also makes it possible for companies to monitor performance from a central location in a convenient format. 

The ability to process data from disparate sources enables insurers to optimize opportunities. For example, integration with the weather department provides weather predictions. Companies can monitor these weather patterns by region and send an additional notification to policyholders, pushing them to take action like additional coverage or ways to avoid hail damage. 

Modern business intelligence is at the forefront of the insurance industry 

In the insurance sector, optimized data management operations are essential. Advanced business intelligence tools can help the organization keep their data safe and draw meaningful conclusions. Modern insurance companies are leading the market based on analytical innovations and business intelligence adoptions. The industry has to spend more on new technologies to achieve increased efficiency, sales, and a streamlined management process. Learn more about how you can leverage business intelligence tools and gain a competitive advantage.