Multi-party customer interactions: how to streamline complex processes in insurance

Insurance processes are complicated, but your employees want them to be simple and quick. Removing friction from customer interactions in insurance can boost customer experience, raise customer satisfaction, and drive loyalty and revenue for the long term. 

This is no easy task when so many interactions involve multiple parties, but a digital dynamic interactions solution can make all the difference. In this blog, we'll discuss the challenges of complex multi-party processes in insurance, and explore the impact of using the right digital solution. 

Challenges of multi-party interactions in insurance

Insurance processes generally involve multiple parties, including the insurer as well as the policyholder and the agent. Third-party providers such as independent appraisers, risk specialists, and legal experts are also often involved. With so many parties, interactions inevitably become complex. 

You need everyone involved to have the same data and be up to date about workflows, but data comes from many directions and communication tends to be fragmented. CSG reports that the average enterprise receives data from 28 unique sources, but that's likely to be higher for insurance companies. The longer the process, the greater the risk that someone will drop a ball somewhere along the way. 

More often than not, entities have only partial knowledge about the state of play. Communication spans multiple channels and splinters into individual conversations. Audit trails go cold and compliance issues get overlooked, while data drops between the cracks or disappears into siloes. Manual processes are error-prone and time-consuming, which only makes things worse. 

Importance of streamlining complex processes

Complicated customer interactions in insurance have a direct impact on operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, profitability. Multi-party workflows require more admin work, and communication breakdowns happen more frequently. This delays processing, causing a longer wait for income to clear and often incurring extra costs which take a bite out of your profits. 

Sometimes processes get overlooked entirely, leading to mistaken conclusions and/or customers who wait for a response that never arrives. Eventually, they get frustrated with long delays and decide to take their business elsewhere. There's no shortage of competition: BCG analysts predict the era of embedded insurance, when "every company is an insurer."

The solution is to use effective digital solutions that support dynamic interactions in real time. Manual workflows result in errors, missed steps, delays, and poor collaboration. But digital solutions can support instant data sharing, unified communication, and smooth coordination between all the parties. 

Key areas where multi-party interactions are common

Insurance workflows frequently require multi-party interactions. Claims management in particular demands that policyholders, claims adjusters, and legal services share data and communicate clearly. Sometimes experts like medical examiners and repair shops are also involved. 

Underwriting is another multi-party process, involving underwriters, agents, policyholders, credit agencies, and third-party data providers. Clients, agents, and administrators also need to collaborate for new client onboarding, and policy updates require communication between policyholders, agents, and insurers. 

Multi-party processes crop up in almost every insurance workflow. Underwriters and claims managers need to collect and verify information, which generally means consulting with third-party databases and running credit checks. Compliance checks involve compliance officers, legal advisors, and sometimes external auditors. Various parties need to share sensitive information on a regular basis. Even collecting signatures can involve policyholders, insurers, and agents. 

How technology can streamline multi-party processes

The right technology can streamline these complex processes and remove friction from customer interactions in insurance. Some tools, such as electronic signature platforms and CRM systems, have been around for a while, but they aren't always enough to remove complexity. Unless they integrate into a single ecosystem and share data seamlessly, they just preserve complexity in digital form. 

Dynamic digital documents offer an alternative. These are holistic digital solutions that can take in data in various formats and from multiple sources, including signatures, photos, and scanned documents, and make it available to all parties. You can draft policies, check compliance, and manage claims in the same place. Everyone involved can view, edit, and comment on documents for smoother real-time collaboration. 

Importantly, dynamic digital documents integrate with existing systems like CRM and BPM platforms. This forms a unified environment where you can share data, messages, and assets without friction. Nobody needs to log in and out of multiple platforms or download and upload files, which makes workflows more efficient. 

Dynamic digital documents also actively help keep everybody on track and up to date. They'll send automated notifications and reminders so that everyone knows when there's a deadline coming up or if something has changed about a particular policy. It helps policyholders, agents, claims managers, and more to stay abreast of updates and changes. 

The benefits of streamlining multi-party processes

Removing friction from customer interactions in insurance brings many benefits for your insurance company. First and foremost, digital tools empower you to resolve claims and update policies more quickly. They also increase transparency, which drives higher customer trust. 

Overall, they improve CX, which boosts customer loyalty and reduces churn. According to research by McKinsey, CX leaders in insurance outperform their peers by up to 65 percentage points, and see higher retention rates and better operational efficiencies. 

At the same time, you'll enjoy lower operational costs. Automating tedious processes reduces the need for manual labor, which frees employees to focus on work that drives value. It also decreases the risk of errors, saving you the time and money it takes to identify and correct them. With more confidence in the accuracy of your data, you'll move more quickly through workflows and stop wasting time scrutinizing documents for mistakes. 

Centralizing data management through a unified digital platform brings better compliance and data security. Centralized data solutions improve compliance with data privacy and data security regulations. Access controls are built into the system, so you can track access attempts and reduce the risk of data breaches. Real-time monitoring helps you verify that everyone is following security best practices, while automated logs improve the audit trail. 

When you use digital platforms to streamline multi-party processes, you'll remove bottlenecks from complex tasks and speed up completion rates. Real-time collaboration and updates help all stakeholders to work together more efficiently. Everyone can enter data remotely and see updates immediately, so transactions keep moving through the pipeline and your completion rate increases. 

EasySend's role in streamlining multi-party interactions

EasySend offers a dynamic interaction layer that's specifically designed to address the complexities of multi-party customer interactions in insurance. It turns manual tasks into an automated workflow, and integrates individual PDF forms into a single seamless data journey. 

Customers, agents, underwriters, and other stakeholders can easily input data, attach photos, documents, and other assets, and sign forms all in the same place. The platform serves as the missing piece that bridges the gaps between your core enterprise systems and your customers' needs. 

As well as collecting and sharing data, EasySend enables smooth communication between everyone involved in complex insurance processes. This improves collaboration and reduces the risks of misunderstandings and mistakes. By integrating with your existing ecosystem, EasySend simplifies dynamic interactions and improves customer satisfaction, which drives revenue and improves customer loyalty. 

Ready to remove friction from your multi-party customer interactions? Reach out to us at EasySend.io.