4 examples of digital transformation in insurance

Everyone is talking about digital transformation.

But what will this transformation look like in insurance? What will be the role of InsurTech companies? How will insurers integrate innovations, partnerships and technologies into their existing digital infrastructures?

The choice insurers face today is whether to simply invest in digital capabilities or to truly become digital insurers.

One thing is for certain, from sensors on cars and trucks to smart systems for homes and factories, data has and will continue to transform the insurance industry. Tellingly, more than 50% of insurance budgets in 2017 are dedicated to digital transformation projects, according to insurance industry analysts Novarica and SMA.

Looking for inspiration? Here are four examples of digital transformation at work in the insurance industry:

1. Discovery Benefits

The recent #AIIM17 conference was a testament to this disruptive transformation. Dean Johnson, OnBase manager at Discovery Benefits, joined more than 650 information professionals from around the world to share and gain insights on the best practices and techniques for digitizing, automating and managing information.

In Johnson’s session at AIIM, “Getting the Most out of Your Enterprise Solutions,” he shared Discovery’s experiences leveraging enterprise content management (ECM) to digitally transform its business.

Discovery’s leaders talked with the audience about creating an enterprise vision for managing related digital content, where storing content for the sake of storing content is no longer a valid concept. Instead, organizations need to deliberately and intelligently connect and present content in a single, complete view.

“We use OnBase as our central nervous system” said John Biwer, president of Discovery Benefits. “It controls nearly every process we have in the company. By leveraging a single enterprise information management platform as the central nervous system of our business operations, Discovery has grown from providing benefits for 1.25 million people to more than 5 million while saving over $500,000 a year in paper costs alone.”

2. FMG Insurance

I also spoke with another OnBase insurance customer, FMG Insurance from New Zealand. FMG’s goal is to provide easy access to information for employees and customers. Geoff Yates, CIO, shared with me what FMG needs to meet the service vision it has established for its clients:

• The ability to present information from any place without forcing multiple systems to manage that content.
• A platform to manage information and, in essence, to become the system’s lifeblood – like the cardiovascular system of the system, carrying oxygenated blood from the heart throughout the body. Or, in this case, carrying information to all the vital systems.
• The flexibility to put the information platform in the center of every solution design.

“OnBase not only manages content,” said Yates. “It creates context around that information. Because of this, we can use OnBase in a considered manner, to simplify systems and build new solutions. It has become the heart of our enterprise. We put it at the center of everything we think about.”

3. North Star Mutual Insurance Company

North Star leaders also talked to us about why they selected OnBase to serve as a single enterprise information and document management platform to support its digital enterprise strategy.

“Our prior document management solution focused primarily on storing and retrieving documents, but failed to deliver advanced processing, valuable reporting or analytics capabilities,” said Jon Brower, senior VP of IT at North Star. “OnBase will help us achieve our automation and growth strategies by granting greater insight and visibility into our data and processes, allowing us to work more efficiently.”

4. AF Group

AF Group is a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. The organization manages more than 50,000 workers’ compensations claims annually. “OnBase allows us to centrally manage critical claim information while moving work throughout the organization,” said AF Group CIO, Said Taiym. “From nurses and doctors to claims handlers, support and legal, everyone is tasked with their respective piece of the puzzle simultaneously, helping us advance the claim faster and provide stronger care. The out-of-the-box functionality of the OnBase integration with Guidewire software provides the foundation for us to compile data driven analysis and models which enables us to provide better care to the claimant, allowing them to recover and return to work faster.”

Want to learn more about how and where leading insurers are taking their digital transformation journey?