Why Insurers Need Customized Automation Tools
Mar 2023
P&C insurers need automation to maximize efficiency for underwriters using property intelligence and data
Mar 2023
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Since this post was originally published, Betterview was acquired by Nearmap. References to Betterview, the company, or its products have been maintained for historical accuracy. Betterview is now the primary solution for the insurance industry at Nearmap.
Automation is a must have for P&C insurance companies, particularly for personal line carriers. It is essential for increasing underwriting efficiency and reducing expenses throughout the policy lifecycle. Thankfully, property intelligence platforms—using cutting-edge technology like computer vision and LiDAR—are here to bring modern solutions to bottlenecks and inefficiencies that have long plagued the industry.
At Betterview, we understand automation is not one-size-fits-all. After all, different insurers have different technology requirements based on their unique business needs. That is why we adopted a flexible and responsive approach to automation. Whether you are looking to fully automate renewals for a massive book of business or a high touch alternative, the Betterview platform has the automation tools you need.
The Betterview Property Intelligence & Risk Management Platform was built for automation by a team of insurance industry veterans. Their personal experience with common insurance pain points – such as inefficient physical inspection processes – informed a number of features designed to maximize efficiency for underwriters and other insurance professionals:
- High-Quality Aerial Imagery – We partner with industry-leading imagery providers to ensure that users have access to accurate, up-to-date imagery for every property in their book. This reduces the need for physical inspections, saving insurers both time and budget resources.
- Computer Vision Detections – Our constantly-evolving computer vision models reveal granular information about real property condition—such as missing shingles, yard debris, or tree overgrowth—and are automatically spotlighted on the platform to help underwriters make rapid and informed policy decisions.
- Flagging – With our customizable flagging system insurers can automatically flag properties that meet certain conditions, and prioritize resources accordingly.
These tools make the Betterview platform a powerful way to drive automation. Depending on the level of automation desired – and their specific use case – insurers may customize the platform to meet their needs.
Some insurers, particularly personal lines carriers, want a solution that provides maximum automation. They want to input a large book of properties and move them through the underwriting process with little to no human touch. For underwriting, pricing, and even renewal, the Betterview platform enables insurers to go all in on automation. Thanks to our bulk-processing capabilities, insurers can run their entire book through our platform without lifting a finger.
For example, an insurer may decide to straight-through-process all properties with a certain roof score and reject or add exclusions to the ones that fall below this score. By setting up these rules at the beginning, a carrier can rapidly work through their book of business without having to dedicate underwriting resources to each individual property. For insurers writing in regions prone to catastrophic events, Betterview even offers peril-specific insights and scores that take the guesswork out of complex policy decisions.
At Betterview we like to say: “automate everything, drill down when needed.” This is simply to recognize that some insurers want to strike a different balance of automated processes and human intervention. Fortunately, we are here to meet these use cases as well.
Returning to the previous example, say that an underwriter knows most of their policies are low risks with an acceptable roof score. However, they also know that there will be some properties that carry more complex risk factors, and thus need to be more thoroughly analyzed. This is no issue for the Betterview platform.
Users can easily set rules so that all low-risk properties are straight-through-processed, but the more risk-prone properties are given a closer look by an experienced underwriter. In some cases, they may even elect to send a physical inspection team to get a closer look. What’s crucial, however, is that these inspection teams are not the only tool being used. They are instead strategically deployed only to those properties that need the most attention, a far more efficient use of company resources.
These use cases range from “no touch” to “low touch” to “high touch,” but all of them use Betterview technology to automate time-consuming tasks and circumvent bottlenecks. Equipped with this combination of comprehensive property intelligence and workflow management tools, insurers can improve their expense ratio while also providing the best possible service to their customers. Interested in learning about other automation opportunities from our platform? Reach out to us today.