The Best Document Automation Tools for the Insurance Industry

As you already know, the insurance sector is data-driven and document-intensive. You have many documents coming into the company, and many documents leaving the company – each one with its own purpose: new policies, renewals, audits, claims, and amendments are involved in the insurance workflow.

While most insurance companies have moved to some level of electronic documents, there’s also a need to extract data automatically from documents and enter it into internal systems for creating and managing policies. It can seem like a lot to automate all of this, but it pays for itself.

Insurance Companies Can See Huge Gains from Automating Data Extraction and Document Generation

Document automation breaks down all the barriers to faster document processing. The essential benefits of the tool are: 

• Delivers direct cost savings by reducing the manual labor required to review, organize and enter data from documents. Data is still being processed, but does not require manual processing. 
  
  
• AI-enabled (artificial intelligence) tools deliver enhanced data accuracy when extracting data from documents for underwriting and claims processing.
  
  
• Skilled employees who are critical for sales and claims processing are able to focus more on the portion of the job that requires analysis rather than entering or reviewing data for accuracy.  

How can document automation reduce manual data extraction and deciphering?

Critical data is collected from a number of sources including documents submitted by a customer or an adjuster. The documents may be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. Document automation processes data from different documents such as invoices, claims forms and data for underwriting. The automated process to input the information takes only a fraction of the time and cost spent on performing the same tasks manually.

AI-enabled insurance document automation tools perform the following functions:

• Capture and read information from forms, invoices, receipts, or other documents such as third-party claims.
• Enter the extracted data into the internal systems of different departments such as sales, customer service and underwriting.
• The automated extraction of data reduces the time spent on redundant tasks and eliminates the chance of human error.
• Automates the processing of documents into defined workflows for internal use (approvals, claims approvals, etc.)
• Automates the flow of documents and access to documents for customers.
• Document automation tools decipher handwriting and ensure legal signatures are captured wherever needed.
• The tools can improve upon themselves (self-learning software) with the help of human input.

Top tools for insurance document automation

1)    Document Understanding by UiPath

UiPath’s Document Understanding offers one of the most exciting technological breakthroughs of the automation age. This program utilizes machine learning to automatically scan, interpret, and act on the document data - automatically. With this technology, your staff no longer has to manually sort through documents and route them into the proper process. Document Understanding offers an incredible array of improved efficiencies and benefits for your insurance organization. 

Document Understanding by UiPath offers solutions for structured, semi-structured, and even unstructured documents. Establishing parameters for each type of document helps the technology function as smoothly as possible. You’ll be able to load every type of document that your agency processes into an automated process and get the pertinent information to the right people and systems. 

Some of the key benefits that this technology offers your business are: 

• Increased Accessibility to Data
  Management and staff immediately gain access to the most up-to-date information for the company. This means that decisions can be made quickly to respond to changing environments. 
  
  
• Increase Your Team’s Abilities
  Instead of spending valuable time on sorting through documents, your team can use their time to perform high level analysis that matches their skill level. 
  
  
• Reduced Processing Time
  Automated document processing allows your typical workflow to be radically streamlined. That means that your typical turnaround on projects and tasks can be reduced. The end result of less time spent processing is higher customer and employee satisfaction. 
  
  
• Cost Savings
  The reduced time and energy spent on deciphering documents results in an improved bottom line for your agency. Facility and technology costs can be reduced by up to 33-38%, while employee expenses are reduced between 27-40%. In fact, the 3-year return on investment (ROI) is 250% with automation.  

 2)    Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) by Automation Anywhere

One of the most important parts of document management is accurate data extraction.  IDP allows insurance companies to extract and process data from structured and semi-structured document formats like emails, PDF documents, images, etc. 

IDP uses AI technologies like Machine Learning (ML) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to classify, categorize and validate the extracted data. You no longer need a human to try to decipher what has been included on a document or handwritten on a form. 

When combined with RPA (Robotic Process Automation), IDP delivers an effective tool to automate enterprise business processes. IDP tools are non-invasive, integration-friendly, and can be applied across multiple business functions.

Intelligent Document Processing provides the following benefits:

• RPA-native IDP tools don't require cumbersome setup. When they are integrated, they often provide a 5-10x faster speed than other methods. 
  
  
• IDP and RPA that are enabled with AI allow straight-through processing (STP) by applying human feedback into their continuous learning processes. 
  
  
• IDP handles documents reliably and securely.
  
  
• An extensive toolset that includes different features such as specialized OCR technology allows easy handling of any unique use case.
  
  
• With time, the ROI of the document automation tool increases because the IDP bots learn and improve continuously.
  
  

3)    Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer

Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer is an AI-powered document extraction tool that uses advanced machine learning to ensure accurate data extraction. The tool can extract text, key-value pairs, tables, and structures from documents easily.

Important features of Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer include:

• The tool includes prebuilt, layout, and custom APIs that enable data extraction in an organized manner.
  
  
• Prebuilt includes pre-trained models for common scenarios like receipts and invoices. The Layout API detects and extracts text and layout of documents, like tables, checkboxes, etc.
  
  
• Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer is fast and easy as it can be tailored to meet your needs with just a few samples. It helps you save your time and cost and “act on” the information rather than compile it.

Learn more about how to use Microsoft products for insurance process automation. 

Key benefits of Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer for insurance companies includes:

• Prebuilt and custom features of Microsoft Azure Form Recognizer organize information quickly, without the need for manual labeling.
  
  
• Form Recognizer can be customized to obtain key fields to match your document layouts.
  
  
• Microsoft Azure offers flexibility to be incorporated with your existing programs and workflow processes. 
  
  
• Enterprise-grade security and privacy features are built into the tool and can be applied to your data and any trained model.
  
  
• Accepts human inputs to define an accurate model for your forms.
  
  
• Azure Form Recognizer can be applied at the edge, on-premises, or in the cloud.
  
  
• If your insurance company is using Microsoft Azure for other functions in the company, such as underwriting insurance policies, the integration of the information can be easier.

Integration of Document Data into Other Insurance Systems

Data extracted using insurance document automation tools can be cleaned and integrated into your existing systems. This allows your organization to:

• Auto-populate specific internal and customer-facing systems using RPA.
  
  
• Categorize and feed information extracted from several systems into relevant reports or customer-facing documents.
  
  
• Empower the already existing workflow with data.
  
  
• Analyze the validated data for key decision-making processes.

Choosing the Best Document Automation and Data Extraction Tools for Your Insurance Company

It may be difficult to know which tools are right for you. Integratz specializes in helping companies find the right RPA and AI tools for Intelligent Automation of their insurance processes. 

Let’s start up a conversation about what you need, what you have now and how we may be able to help you get your insurance documents managed more efficiently.