The insurance industry provides vital cover for countless numbers of clients worldwide, and in doing so it creates a massive amount of administrative work. A fundamental part of this administration involves physical paperwork, even in today’s digital world.
All of this physical paperwork needs to be processed and, increasingly, stored digitally. This, and all other factors involved in paperwork management, can be extremely expensive. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is one way to simplify the digitization of data, and modern AI-based OCR has further simplified the process. Possibly the most important benefit of this simplification is a significant reduction in various admin-associated costs.
Below, we look at some of the ways AI-based OCR can save insurers money, and how your company too can benefit from more efficient digitization.
What is AI-based OCR for insurance companies?
OCR for insurance is similar to any other type of OCR technology but applied in the context of insurance. This can mean, for example, using the software to process claims forms, customer intake forms, and any other insurance-specific types of paperwork.
Incorporating AI into OCR for insurance can enhance the functionality of the software, making it capable of recognizing and accurately digitizing information from a wider range of document formats and more complex documents.
How can AI-based OCR cut costs for the insurance industry?
Simpler claims handling
A clear money-saving benefit of AI-powered OCR for insurance companies is that it can drastically simplify claims handling, automating large parts of the process. Instead of needing workers to manually transferring the information from claims forms to a computer, insurance companies can process the data automatically.
Using AI-based OCR can also result in more accurate digitization, meaning fewer costly errors causing issues that need to be corrected. Additionally, OCR software can deal with huge numbers of documents simultaneously, in contrast to employees who can only process one document at a time.
All of these benefits can lead to lower labor costs, as well as a reduction in other associated costs such as those caused by administrative errors.
Fraud and error detection
A serious challenge for every insurer is the detection and prevention of fraud, and of unintentional errors. Unfortunately, both insurance fraud and errors in paperwork are extremely common, and while employees are often able to detect most cases, the manpower needed to carefully assess every claim can incur a significant financial burden. Also, when cases of fraud or inaccuracies inevitably slip through the net, either through human error or a lack of resources, insurers can be hit with substantial costs.
AI-enabled OCR for insurers can improve the error and fraud detection process by automatically scanning documents for mistakes and signs of fraud, such as inconsistencies. This helps insurers save money by cutting down on the labor costs usually required for error and fraud detection and by picking up on things that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Customer satisfaction
An indirect benefit of AI-based OCR for insurance firms is the positive impact it can have on customer satisfaction. By streamlining and automating crucial parts of the data handling process, advanced OCR can help insurers process claims faster. Other parts of the customer journey can also be improved, for example through faster processing of new customers, faster amendments to policy details, and so on.
By improving the customer experience in these important ways, OCR can contribute to higher customer retention and therefore a reduction in the costs associated with high customer churn rates.
Cost-effective scalability
Another challenge for many insurers is the difficulty of dealing with periods of increased demand for services, such as when a firm is growing rapidly, in response to a successful marketing campaign, or when large quantities of claims come in at once. Traditionally, these periods would require either increased workloads for employees, or the hiring of new or temporary staff members, both of which are expensive solutions.
AI-enabled OCR offers an alternative to this model, enabling firms to process huge quantities of documents simultaneously with no drop in performance. This can significantly cut the labor-related costs normally associated with increased demand.
Tailored functionality
The advanced AI and machine learning technology powering some modern OCR software can make it highly customizable to match the unique requirements of any insurance company. For example, algorithms can be pre-trained to recognize and accurately digitize information from any document type, even complex and unique formats. Also, AI can learn and adapt over time to become faster, more versatile, and more accurate.
These adaptable traits mean insurers can tailor the functionality of their AI-based OCR software in a way not possible with less advanced OCR technology, improving efficiency and reducing costs.
How can Digitise.AI benefit your business?
Digitise.AI’s AI-based OCR platform helps insurance companies process documents and digitize information faster, more efficiently, and automatically. With the help of our advanced AI technology, you can dramatically improve the speed and accuracy of claims processing, invoices, fraud detection, customer onboarding, and much more.
Our AI experts can even pre-train the algorithms driving Digitise.AI to comprehend any document format automatically, ensuring full compatibility with your unique administrative requirements.
Talk to our team today to schedule a demo and learn more about the ways Digitise.AI can start saving your business money.