Insurance is a necessary service for huge numbers of people and businesses worldwide, and this means an enormous amount of paperwork is produced by the industry. This paperwork can range from policy documents to correspondence and anything else that might be used as part of day-to-day insurance operations. These masses of paperwork are difficult to store, cause a lot of waste, and take a lot of time to process, among other issues.
Digitizing documents is the obvious answer to these challenges, but usually this would need to be done by either employees manually transferring data into a computer system, or by using optical character recognition (OCR) software. Manual data transfer is very time-consuming for workers, making it an inefficient process, so OCR is becoming the preferred method for many insurance companies.
In this article, we explore how OCR can be used by the insurance industry and how your business could also start to benefit from AI-powered OCR.
What is OCR for insurance?
OCR is a technology used to automatically transfer information from physical documents to a digital format. Insurance OCR is simply standard OCR technology used in an insurance-related setting, such as for insurance policy documents or any other documents used by insurance companies.
However, most basic OCR software is limited in its usefulness. One reason for this is that it struggles to deal with anything but the most simple, clear documents and so it is prone to making errors.
Fortunately, some OCR software uses advanced AI technology to overcome these challenges. This modern OCR offers far more accurate, versatile, and reliable results and can process huge numbers of even highly complex documents very quickly, making it the clear choice for many insurance businesses.
How is OCR helping to digitize insurance?
Faster document processing
Possibly the most transformative benefit of AI-based OCR for insurance companies is its ability to drastically speed up the document digitization process. In the past, the only way to digitize information was via data entry by humans or with primitive OCR software. Both of these methods can be slow incurring unnecessary costs for insurers.
AI-enabled OCR is capable of processing documents almost instantaneously, cutting out the wasted time and allowing workers to focus their time and energy on other pressing tasks to benefit the company.
Financial benefits
OCR software saves insurers from needing to waste time on their document digitization. With less time being spent on this laborious work, businesses can spend less on their administrative budgets.
Additionally, the faster processing times can result in more responsive service for customers and an overall more efficient operation, potentially leading to greater customer satisfaction and an improved ability to attract new clients.
More accurate digitization
Accuracy is of utmost importance in the insurance industry. Insurance policy details, claims, payouts, and more all involve very specific figures and wording, so errors in related documents are extremely undesirable for any insurer.
Unfortunately, manual data transfer by humans is never going to be completely error-free, and some of these errors can have serious negative consequences. Likewise, basic OCR software can be even less accurate than manual data transfer, also potentially causing issues.
AI-based OCR, however, can offer superior rates of accuracy to either manual transfer or more simple OCR software, making it an invaluable resource for many insurers who demand high levels of accuracy from their data processing.
Unaffected by demand surges
Another clear advantage of AI-based OCR software over less advanced methods, particularly data entry by humans, is its ability to handle a huge number of documents almost instantaneously, without any drop in accuracy or performance.
Insurers can often experience surges in the number of documents needing to be processed, for example when a special offer has been released or multiple claims come through in a short period of time. Under normal circumstances, these periods could result in low response times, increased workloads for employees, and even more errors due to rushed working conditions.
AI-powered OCR software, however, can often handle thousands of documents at a time, with a near-limitless capacity to digitize compared with humans, without any drop in accuracy and reliability during demand surges.
Easier storage, sharing
Physical documents take up vastly more space than digital data, so insurers can more easily store their important information when it is in digital form. AI-based OCR not only facilitates the digitization of data, but it can also be integrated to work seamlessly with companies’ existing IT systems, truly transforming the efficiency of the storage process.
A further benefit of digital data is the ease with which it can be shared, whether it’s between internal staff members in the same office, to other locations, or with customers. This makes it more useful for insurers and simplifies the processes of collaboration with colleagues as well as correspondence with customers.
Digitize any document automatically
Yet another limitation of the more traditional digitization methods of manual data entry and basic OCR is that complex and unique document formats can be difficult, if not impossible, to process.
AI-enabled OCR, on the other hand, is able to process a far greater range of document types than more basic forms of OCR, and is not slowed down in the way that humans are when trying to decipher complex documents. Additionally, modern AI-based OCR can be pre-trained to recognize and accurately interpret even completely unique documents, ensuring absolute compatibility with any insurer.
How does Digitise.AI help insurers?
The Digitise.AI platform uses advanced AI technology to digitize data from paper documents used by insurance companies, such as policy documents, invoices, correspondence letters, and anything else that may be processed by insurers.
To ensure full compatibility and seamless functionality, we can also pre-train the algorithms driving Digitise.AI to recognize any document type you specify and digitize the relevant information with exceptional accuracy.
With Digitise.AI, you can rely on a higher level of accuracy than found with the average manual transfer or with most non-AI OCR software, along with faster document processing and integration with your existing systems. Talk to our experts to schedule a demo and see the platform in action.
See how Digitise.AI can automate your digitization