Robotizing processes in the insurance industry
A major insurance institution is supporting the dynamic growth of its organization by betting on intelligent automation using Robotic Process Automation technologies. By implementing software robots with the assistance of Mindbox, it speeds up business processes and frees employees from time-consuming, manual tasks letting them focus on more creative and value-adding tasks instead.
The insurance firm described here is actually two companies working together: one is offering life insurance and the other is offering property insurance. With more than a quarter century of experience in the Polish insurance market, the firm currently serves more than 2.3 million customers and in 2021 had a total of PLN 1.332 billion in gross premiums written.
In recent years, the firm has been on a path of rapid growth. It is constantly expanding its product offerings and also working on methods to accelerate, modify and bring new products to market, as well as increase operational efficiency. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one of the globally proven ways to increase productivity. Awareness of the possibilities offered by the technology had been developed within the organization for a long time. The company had been preparing to launch a long-term robotization program by looking at the various technologies available on the market and identifying the processes that provide the greatest potential gains from automation. Working with specialists from the bank that is associated with the company, it succeeded in implementing robots to support two processes. However, it was only after entering into the partnership with Mindbox that the automation program gained momentum.
“Thanks to the work previously done in the organization, we were able to get down to the specific activities right away. Awareness and enthusiasm for robots among employees were at a high level. We also had quite a large funnel of candidate processes for automation already at the start. Very quickly a small team was formed, which set about preparing and implementing the automation procedure.”
“The first goal was to create a standard framework, a working procedure for the automation processes area. It was necessary – as is the case with any other IT project – based on best practices to match the steps taken with the organizational procedures, especially in terms of security and regulatory compliance. The result is a document of dozens of pages, which describes in detail all the next steps to be taken before, during and after the robotization of any process,” says Daniel Chrapczynski – RPA Developer at Mindbox.
Planned and ad hoc
The first two software robots – implemented while still working with the bank’s specialists – began operating at the company in late 2021. They handle arrears monitoring and the resulting cancellation of policies that are unpaid for.
The first automated process implemented by the insurance firm’s internal team in cooperation with the experts from Mindbox was reporting vehicles without mandatory auto insurance. Every insurer sends reports to the fund that include information not only about uninsured vehicles but even a one-day gap in the insurance continuity.
Completing this work by humans was time-consuming and required logging into several IT systems. Now the process is handled entirely by a robot. Only during the initial two-week “hypercare” period the final reports were approved by a human before they were sent out. Now, although they are sent to the employee in charge to provide a confirmation that the report was generated, they do not need to be checked and approved before transmission.
“Although it seems straightforward, accurately describing this robot’s work was not easy. Translating the business rules used by employees into a list of steps for the robot to perform was so complex that additional analysis steps that were not initially anticipated were needed. The result, however, is a sophisticated solution that communicates with an outside-facing application at the UFG (Polish Insurance Guarantee Fund). The robot works reliably and has fully freed people from this task,” says Daniel Chrapczynski – RPA Developer at Mindbox.
The deployment of the next robot was not initially planned. The goal was to automate a process due to the escalation of the war in Ukraine. As a result of sanctions imposed on Russia, it was necessary to remove the listings of Russian funds to prevent investments in them.
“This could have been done traditionally by modifying the website with the quotes, but this would have meant launching an IT project that would have taken several weeks. There was no time for that, however. Therefore, before the quotes are uploaded to the site, a robot was developed that modifies them by removing the Russian funds. It took a few minutes to set it up. It still works without any problems,” says Daniel Chrapczynski – RPA Developer at Mindbox.
Another process that has been automated in recent months though not planned initially has been sending electronic correspondence to customers with an email attached to the case file in the administrative system. Due to an error in the system, it was necessary to address regular information campaigns to customers. The ultimate goal was to use this solution for all mass communication to customers. The robot made it possible to automate it fully.
The RPA program is expanding
By the end of 2022, the insurance firm will have 12 software robots in operation. Recent automation jobs have focused on assisting people with day-to-day work or performing tasks that they often begin to have no time for. Such implementations will also be the focus of next year. The firm continues to expand rapidly, with the number of customers growing so much that handling all processes would require employees to work additional overtime. Therefore, the support of software robots is needed.
The recently automated processes include the registration of claims based on data from the document management system. A robot enters the claim information into the insurance system and informs the customer that the case has been registered. Another robot is responsible for payouts. In the insurance system, employees enter the payout information, but the payment itself is already carried out by the robot.
Finally, the robot is also responsible for verifying information that eliminates the risk of fraudulent claims. Under agreements concluded between insurance companies, they exchange information on recorded claims – in this insurance firm this is done by the robot.
“We have accomplished a great deal, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us. We have identified many simple processes that can be profitably automated. We still have nearly 30 projects in the funnel, but the number is growing because more proposals are being submitted. As a result, our client is thinking of forming an in-house team of programmers and analysts to handle them. Mindbox will provide the firm with external support for more difficult projects,” says Daniel Chrapczynski – RPA Developer at Mindbox.