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How Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Can Help Insurance Agencies Maximize Staff Efficiency
The insurance industry is facing a significant transition. Nearly 400,000 experienced workers are set to retire by 2026 and attracting young talent is turning out to be a challenge. Given the double whammy, agencies that liberate their workforce from excessive paperwork are geared for a competitive advantage.
This is where Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help. Like faithful sidekicks, RPA bots can take care of repetitive and mundane tasks and give back valuable time to your staff. While it is important for you to future-proof business, it is equally important to ensure employees don’t feel threatened by the transition. Navigating this change requires finding the right balance between embracing automation and alleviating employee anxieties.
How RPA Helps Insurance Agencies Overcome Traditional Roadblocks
- Reduced Mundanity: The insurance industry is rife with repetitive tasks, and data entry is a prime offender. The sheer monotony and predictability of these tasks and the constant pressure to be accurate and efficient can sap employee motivation and make employees feel burnt out. RPA bots can mimic human interactions within your existing business applications. Like humans, bots can navigate through menus, select options, open files, enter data, copy and paste data, or send emails in your existing tech landscape. When used alongside Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, bots can even extract text from documents, such as claim forms, and convert it into digital data for processing.
- Increased Capacity: According to Zip do, the average worker takes three breaks of at least 22 minutes each in an 8-hour shift, totaling over 1 hour of work pause. RPA bots can operate without breaks and process data much faster, making them ideal for high-volume repetitive tasks.
- Repurposed Talent: Empathy, creativity, and complex problem-solving – these are the hallmarks of exceptional customer experience and where humans shine. With RPA as an ally, your staff can rise above the routine, using their emotional intelligence and ingenuity to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
- Improved Compliance: RPA bots can automatically follow pre-defined rules and regulations, ensuring consistent compliance with industry standards and reducing the risk of costly fines or penalties. Bots save time and resources, allowing staff to focus on more complex tasks while maintaining a high level of accuracy in compliance-related activities.
What RPA Can Do For Insurance Agencies
RPA does not need technology overhaul. It can seamlessly plug into existing systems including insurance agency management systems and unlock hidden efficiencies. Here are 5 key areas where it can truly power up your insurance agency.
- Direct Bill Commission Statement Reconciliation: RPA bots can gather commission statements directly from insurance carriers, match commission data from the statements with corresponding policies, validate commissions, and promptly flag any discrepancies for human review.
- Policy Renewal: Bots can process renewals, generate updated policy documents, and email the renewal certificate to policyholders.
- Account Setup: Bots can automatically scan and extract data from scanned applications and supporting documents. They can pre-fill forms from existing data sources and perform the account creation.
- Notice of Cancellation: RPA can filter out pending cancellations, extract key information from downloaded documents, like policy numbers and cancellation dates, and send notifications to the customers. After cancellations, the bot can periodically check to see if policies have been reinstated and take necessary actions too.
- Document Retrieval: Bots can be programmed to quickly locate and pull specific documents based on predefined criteria, accelerating the document retrieval process.
Beyond these five key areas, the potential for RPA in insurance agencies extends to various tasks like policy checking, data cleanup, underwriting, policy endorsement management and more.
Shifting the Perspective: How to Get Your Workforce to See RPA as a Buddy, not a Bane
Automation might seem like it renders certain skills irrelevant, leaving employees anxious about their job security and career prospects. By fostering open communication and showcasing the benefits of RPA for both employees and the agency, you can pave the way for the transition and get employees to see RPA as a valuable “Buddy” in the workplace.
- Address the Elephant in the Room: Don’t shy away from discussing the potential impact of RPA on specific roles. Openly acknowledging anxieties and providing clear, honest explanations of its goals builds trust and reduces fear of the unknown.
- Collaborate, Not Inform: Don’t just inform, involve. Actively solicit employee feedback and ideas during the RPA implementation process to foster a sense of ownership and uncover blind spots in the process.
- Promote Human Advantages: Emphasize how RPA frees up time from tedious tasks, allowing employees to focus on their uniquely human strengths – critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.
- Upskill for a Brighter Future: Frame RPA as a catalyst for growth by investing in comprehensive training programs that equip employees with the skills needed to thrive alongside automation. This could include data analysis, process improvement, and collaboration skills.
- Showcase “Buddy” Benefits: Share real-world examples of how human-RPA partnerships have improved efficiency, customer service, and employee satisfaction. Here is a case study that you could use to educate your employees.
Achieve Human-RPA Synergy with vBots
RPA isn’t here to replace humans but empower them. Our vBots solution is geared to seamlessly integrate with insurance agency management systems like Applied Epic, Vertafore AMS360, freeing up your agents to focus on what they do best – building relationships, offering personalized advice, and delivering exceptional service. Talk to our experts to see how you can let go of the mundane and embrace the extraordinary with Eleviant CTG’s vBots.
