5 Questions with Prashant Tekchandani
Welcome to the third installment of 5 Questions, a blog series where a team member from Xceedance shares their insights on important trends in insurance, technology, and business. For this edition of 5 Questions, we spoke with Prashant Tekchandani, SVP of underwriting, operations & financial services.
Q1: The lockdown forced the industry to go digital. How will insurers and brokers scale and integrate this model post-pandemic?
Prashant: The COVID-19 pandemic served as a digital catalyst for insurers. The industry, which has largely followed established and traditional operating models, is now embracing digital transformation across the insurance lifecycle. For instance, the implementation of automated claims processing, including FNOL, loss adjudication, and assessment as well as claims settlement leads to operational and cost efficiency by combining robotic process automation (RPA), AI, and human expertise to streamline and expedite claims operations. This leads to a superior customer experience. While the tech partner market for insurance organizations has grown immensely over the last few years, organizations must find the right partner with solutions and domain expertise that fit the specific requirements of their project.
Q2: How will technology-enabled operations and automation help insurers drive business growth and create differentiation?
Prashant: Higher operating margins, pressures to sustain growth, fierce competition, rising consumer expectations, and customer churn are key challenges facing insurance organizations. With the evolution of tech-enabled operations and strategic engagement with technology partners, the industry is starting to reap the benefits of new approaches and new technologies, and the upside of these tech-enabled solutions is enormous. Scalability, flexibility, data analytics, sustainable business operations, and meeting or exceeding customer expectations are some of the many benefits of digital transformation and automation initiatives for insurance organizations. The companies which have not embraced these new approaches, or are slow to implement digital change management, will fall behind those that have adopted tech-based operations.
Q3: Can technology help insurance organizations overcome the after-effects of the great resignation?
Prashant: A recent McKinsey report highlights that more than 19 million U.S. workers quit their jobs between April and September 2021, a record pace. This trend is disrupting businesses everywhere, including the insurance industry. However, increasing focus on and use of technology in the insurance ecosystem can offset some of the impacts of the great resignation.
Automation of repetitive administrative tasks can help insurance organizations focus on core functions of the business and build additional capacity with limited staff resources. Technology also plays a major role in attracting and retaining talent, enabling employees to focus on tasks leading to higher employee satisfaction and supporting hybrid work models – both are critical elements in employee retention.
Q4: Can you discuss key back-office use cases ready for automation technologies in the insurance industry?
Prashant: The digital evolution in the Insurance industry, driven by technologies like RPA, AI, machine learning, optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP), and advanced analytics is fundamentally changing the insurance landscape. Tech-enabled automation has gained broad acceptance and is being adopted across the insurance lifecycle. A recent report from McKinsey highlights how the digital era in insurance may result in the automation of up to 60 percent of traditional back-office operations.
Key examples include:
- Loss data aggregation and data consolidation through automation improving the accuracy and speed of underwriting decisions.
- Seamless migration of legacy data and systems to a new platform with the use of the right technologies and an expert implementation partner.
- Policy management shifting to automation through the deployment of RPA and AI, leading to significant time savings and process efficiencies.
Q5: How does Xceedance help insurance organizations achieve lean, agile operations with technology and strategic operations support?
Prashant: Xceedance has deep insurance domain knowledge and is structured like a re/insurance organization. This enables our team to quickly understand client challenges and leverage our proven insurance expertise, along with technology leadership, to drive strategic operations support for organizations worldwide. The Xceedance team works to make our clients’ operations more efficient and to help them grow without significant capital investments in people and technology.
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Thanks to Prashant for sharing his thoughts and watch for the next installment of 5 Questions coming soon!
