QBE North America

The best insurers know that if they don’t keep customers at the center of every decision, their competitors will.

While insurers have traditionally been viewed as “slow to adapt,” sophisticated technology is a vital part of the insurance industry, even if you don’t see it. We’re increasingly using advanced technology to enhance our engagement with customers while unlocking countless opportunities for us to further differentiate our offering.  Technology is now a critical component for insurers who are committed to serving their customers in today’s environment.

Like most industries, insurance is always changing.  The growth of InsurTech over the past several years has accelerated the pace of change, while COVID-19 has injected new urgency into the industry’s commitment to quickly adopting new processes and technology to serve customers and support partners in this new environment.  We expect that trend to continue in 2021 and beyond. Customer focus and digital advancement across all aspects of the business are key drivers of this trend.

The best insurers know that if they don’t keep customers at the center of every decision, their competitors will. That means going beyond implementing the newest technologies and innovations, to modernizing and unifying existing systems. Here are four ways technology is influencing an improved customer experience across QBE and the industry: 

More Efficient Claims

The evolution of claims represents the most notable changes for customers. One of the most exciting advancements in recent years has been the growth of virtual desktop adjusting for Property claims. By leveraging specialized smart phone apps, our claims professionals can direct a customer in real time to survey their property and take and upload pictures of damaged areas. This capability forms the basis of their estimate and has been especially useful during COVID-19.  It created a situation where portions of our work can be done virtually.

We recently received notice of severe storm damage to the exterior of a customer’s building. On the same day the customer reported the claim, we sent instructions on how to self-inspect the damage using a specialized 3D modelling app. Where previously using an independent vendor to conduct an on-site inspection could take up to a week, our customer was able to complete the inspection the very next day, in under an hour. Combine desktop adjusting with the ability for customers to easily use pre-populated claims and you get a customer experience that is faster and easier than ever before.

Since insurers know the claims experience is the number one priority for customers, we can expect to see continued advancement as insurers find innovative ways to integrate technology into their claims process. Furthermore, exciting technologies like satellite and drone imagery are being utilized to help better understand the extent of the damage and to provide our customers with intel on their property if they are forced to evacuate.

Streamlined Processes

As the market continues to adapt to changing customer and risk profiles, agility, product innovation and speed to market is delineating new leaders in the insurance market.  QBE is modernizing and rationalizing the products for its Specialty & Commercial and selected Program businesses from a number of legacy systems onto a digitally enabled cloud-based system for Policy Administration, Billing and Underwriting.

As a result we expect to see reduced cycle times for product development/management, enhanced capabilities to deliver policies customized to customers’ needs more quickly in the format of their choice and improve billing experience – a major customer touchpoint and often source of customer frustration with carriers. 

This conversion is fueling significant benefits in how quickly, accurately, and holistically we can serve customers and is providing a backbone for us to continue to build out and evolve our digital ecosystem of microservices for use by customers, distribution partners, and internal stakeholders to drive innovative solutions to customers’ needs. 

Meeting Customers Where They Are

Instead of asking customers to change their processes, insurers must change themselves. As a result, the uptick that we’ve experienced in digital usage as customers demand greater self-service is leading to a significant increase in online interactions and a growing need for ease of use. An example is “AI-powered service”, such as TextQBE. The artificial intelligence based conversational service platform provides an alternative channel of communication to improve the customer experience, reduce cycle time and reduce expenses via leveraging SMS - a tool already in nearly every customers’ hands. 

This also includes innovations that customers don’t see but can make a big difference such as application program interface (API) enhancements. At QBE, we have been on a journey to build out an API ecosystem and this has transformed the customer experience for our vendor onboarding system. While the former onboarding process took up to four months, we can onboard new vendors into our system in a much shorter time while supporting the specific customer journeys with near real-time updates. QBE's Renters API can integrate with small and mid-size businesses which enables them to not only integrate and automate the quote process, but to also take it several steps further. Customers can buy insurance in minutes using these APIs, which are designed using an open marketplace and consumption-based approach. We are beginning to realize the benefits of the foundational investments in Technology and pleased about the agility and pace it has provided to our Business partners.

Inventive Risk Management

Technology even allows for active risk management, as the industry will be able to help businesses improve safety and resiliency. For example, musculoskeletal disorder injuries (strains and sprains) are a leading cause of workplace injuries for companies and their employees across the United States. The integration of Humantech® Industrial Ergonomics software into our risk solutions efforts is helping with this issue. This software delivers innovative, AI-based sensorless motion-capture technology to QBE customers, enabling them to recognize employee ergonomics issues in the workplace in real time. QBE also develops new applications in house. For its Crop insurance business, QBE developed Field Insights, a farm system integration. The tool helps farmers manage their risk by staying informed on how their fields are being affected by the weather with real-time field level data including growth models with growing degree days, soil moisture and temperature, precipitation, wind speeds and weather radar.

Over time, we expect to see countless other opportunities like Humantech® and Field Insights embedded in the insurance loss control process.

These are just a few examples of how QBE - and the insurance industry in general - is innovating to be more customers focused. Over the next few years, we can expect a cloud-based, digitized world that is driven by robust data. Virtual mediations, full automation, digital concierge services, and evolved data that can predict the next big crisis will all be par for the course. We’re very excited about the enormous potential and new possibilities for serving customers better at every point in their experience with QBE.