Duck Creek Innovations: Using Smart Agent AI to Drive Customer Benefits 

By Anuja Gindoriya, Project Manager & Osho Kumar, Technology Lead

In the rapidly evolving insurance landscape, innovation is more desirable or an essential element of operations. To succeed in a highly competitive scenario, it is vital that enterprises continuously innovate, especially in the Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance market which is growing steadily but has been slow in embracing new-age technologies. With Duck Creek Technologies emerging as a pioneer in digitally transforming insurance, the challenges faced by companies involved in the implementation of the Duck Creek product suite have been many.  

Over the years, the Duck Creek Suite has provided insurers with cutting-edge digital solutions via low-code configurations and open architecture that allows insurers to manage and maintain their operations on a data-integrated platform. However, the robust and agile approach behind such implementation often goes unheralded. Companies offering these solutions not only require a highly focused business knowledge around insurance but also an approach that can undertake critical in-house operations such as coding and testing, designing, and user experience, besides optimizing costs and conducting seamless upgrades to new versions.  

Innovations in Duck Creek Technologies – Automation in Claims and Forms 

With automation becoming a major driver across most of the insurance industry, some key challenges that crop up include simplifying processes, enhancing accuracy, and improving customer experience and success. Implementation partners must not only provide strategic technology support but also possess an agile delivery model that ensures full-scale implementation and enhancement of the Duck Creek Suite.  

Some of these include solutioning, business analysis, and requirements gathering, Duck Creek Architectural review, new products implementation, manual and automation testing, post-implementation testing, platform upgrades, legacy migration across all P&C lines, and implementation and upgrades for ISO products. At Xceedance, we have used our extensive experience of the insurance industry to simplify the implementation process through some innovative steps such as:  

• Claims Automation: By leveraging data integration and intelligent workflows, claims processing has become swift, accurate, and customer-centric. Manual tasks, such as claims verification, are automated, resulting in an increase in efficiency by up to 30%. The efficiency gains are particularly impactful in the highly competitive claims landscape, where faster and more accurate processing is a major differentiator for an insurer and can help poach customers from the competition. 

• Forms Development Accelerator: Traditional forms development is often time-consuming and resource-intensive. We have addressed this challenge with a proprietary accelerator that has reduced the efforts in forms development. With this, insurers can not only save time, but also drive notable cost savings. Insurers leveraging the Forms Development Accelerator have reported up to 25 to 40% reduction in forms-related expenses depending upon degree of reusability. It also helps insurers accelerate the time-to-market for new products and ensure that forms are aligned with the latest regulations and market demands. 

An AI-led Solution Simplifying the Claims Workflow 

At the top of our innovation chart is the Smart Agent AI, which is redefining how insurers interact with customers post the Duck Creek implementation exercise. The entire process revolving around policy servicing has been streamlined and simplified.  

• AI-Backed Submission Clearance: Smart Agent AI has simplified the submission clearance process substantially. Smart Agent AI automates data extraction, validation, and pre-clearance, significantly reducing manual effort and turnaround time for insurers. The AI solution translates into substantial efficiency gains. It eliminates the tedious process of data extraction and enhances the accuracy of pre-clearance assessments by eliminating human intervention and in turn, human errors. 

• Digital Underwriting Assistant: The AI-driven Digital Underwriting Assistant simplifies loss and exposure data analysis. It eliminates the arduous task of extracting unstructured data from various carriers’ proprietary systems and storing it manually in spreadsheets. Smart Agent AI’s machine learning capabilities enable insurers to swiftly process loss-run reports and exposure data, enhancing underwriting accuracy and decision-making. 

Watch Smart Agent AI in action. 

Benefits to Customers: Real-World Impact 

At first glance, these innovations may appear to offer tangible results to the insurer. Still, the fact is that it also provides significant benefits for end customers by revolutionizing the industry operations and improving customer experience: 

• Efficiency Gains: Automation and digital innovations such as Smart Agent AI drive remarkable efficiency and provide an enriched user experience. For example, our Duck Creek implementation led to a 30% increase in claims processing efficiency and a 25% reduction in costs within the first year of engagement for a leading global insurer. The numbers are expected to rise even further with time. These efficiency gains are particularly significant in an industry where operational agility and cost-effectiveness are critical for profitability and sustainability. 

• Customer-Centric Approach: The enhanced claims automation and Smart Agent AI result in quicker claims processing and more accurate decision-making. Insurers experience faster resolutions, leading to improved customer satisfaction. A swift claims process is a foundation of customer-centricity, enhancing brand reputation and loyalty. 

• Operational Agility: With automated workflows and AI-powered assistance, insurers can respond swiftly to market shifts and customer needs, adapting their business to market needs This operational flexibility becomes a competitive edge in a landscape where market dynamics evolve rapidly. With this, insurers can quickly introduce new offerings to their customers which ensures/ the risk factor stays within controllable limits. 

Benefits Across Customer Categories 

From the point of view of making an impact on the insurance industry, the Smart Agent AI has impacted not just the insurance companies, but also agents and brokers as well as underwriters. Besides a marked reduction in operational costs, it has helped streamline clearance processes and provided additional insights into the underwriting mechanism.  

• Insurers: Enhanced efficiency translates to reduced claims processing times.  This reduction in time and hence costs, can be redirected towards enhancing customer service, product development, or digital transformation initiatives. 

• Agents and Brokers: Streamlined submission clearance means quicker response times, enabling agents and brokers to serve customers more effectively. Faster clearance improves collaboration and communication between intermediaries and insurers, thus helping boost their overall revenues. 

• Underwriters: AI-driven insights empower underwriters to make informed decisions swiftly, boosting their productivity and accuracy. Quick and data-driven decisions enhance underwriting quality and faster resolutions help boost customer satisfaction. 

As a leading partner for Duck Creek Reinsurance and Data Insights implementation, Xceedance is the only Duck Creek System Integrator (SI) with an insurance-only focus. We have an enviable track record of implementations across the United States, Australia, Europe, and India garnered through the efforts of our 300+ team of experts.  The focus on specialty lines and commercial lines ensure that Xceedance implementations are faster, smarter and more efficient. Through automation in claims and forms, and the transformative power of Smart Agent AI, insurers can bring about a higher quantum of efficiency, accuracy, and enhanced customer experience.