Statistics said 80% of tech development will be made by people who are not IT experts by 2024, and over 65% of them will use low-code/no-code solutions. As said, companies of any industry can leverage this emerging technology to shorten development cycles and frees up resources, therefore, being able to concentrate on what they do best. So, how will low-code be used for insurance businesses, and which low-code insurance platforms to use for future opportunities and digital transformation?
Current challenges of digital transformation in insurance
As the market becomes more competitive and customer expectations are higher, the demand for software development also increases. Yet, it’s not an easy game.
The industry relies heavily on data
The primary function of an insurance’s core system is to store and process business records. The industry relies on documentation about policy sales, claims, accounting, finances, customers, agents, and more. However, keeping track of these records is an error-prone time-intensive task with a high risk of data loss.
Insurance businesses require a secure, scalable, and advanced database. But all databases in the current market are either vendor lock-in or unscalable, while customization costs tons of time and works.
Insurance operates on deep collaboration
The whole insurance value chain’s worth of information is used inside its procedures from claims adjusters, actuaries, accountants to underwriters. Several outside groups, including service providers and distribution partners (such as insurance agents and brokers), are involved in the insurance model.
Thus, integration with external systems is necessary due to the extensive regulations imposed on the insurance business.
Legacy system is highly specialized and isolated
No matter how many applications there are, insurance companies still make extensive customizations to match their requirements. In many cases, each software can only deal with a specific part, which asks businesses to use multiple at once.
They must keep up with hundreds of systems that support several departments and procedures (sales, claims, etc.) and ensure regulatory conformity. These systems can sometimes be arbitrary, slowing the whole operation to process raw data.
High price while delivery time is low
An exceptionally long IT backlog may be attributed to the difficulty of upgrading outdated systems. IT needs to work on keeping up with this degree of complexity, much alone about how to support Innovation and new products.
Insurers are hampered because it takes them weeks or months to execute modest modifications and develop a new solution. At this point, a solution that can push deployment time and reduce effort for repeated steps is much more beneficial.
Unsatisfactory interactions with the company’s customers
Employees and customers are the ones who ultimately feel the effects of inefficient technology and systems. Customers suffer greatly from insurers’ internal inefficiencies:
- They may be prevented from using digital channels.
- They may have to repeat themselves when filing a claim.
- They may have to wait an extended period while employees undergo cumbersome manual processes.
Key Takeaway
Purchasing software or building one from scratch is still very effective for digital transformation. Yet, being vendor lock-in or spending much effort on a lengthy development can sometimes backfire as the need for digital transformation gets bigger. Not to mention the struggle of integrating between software and database to software.
This has pushed insurance firms to seek alternatives for their perennial challenges, and low-code is the promising solution.
The alternative: What is low-code?
Extremely revolutionary, low-code refers to a method of app delivery that requires less time spent on coding and less effort in the development process. Low-code platforms are an excellent choice to hasten your organization’s digital transition. Ultimately, they enable the rapid development of secure, interoperable, and intuitive apps focusing on the user experience.
These resources allow citizen developers and business users to significantly influence the company in various ways, such as:
- Easing the burden on IT departments
- Decreasing the prevalence of shadow IT
- Taking more control of business process management (BPM) activities
- Inputting business insights and needs into new solutions.
Everything you need to know: What Is Low-code, Types & Use Cases
Why should you use low-code insurance platform?
1. End repetitive task with automation
Insurance companies deal with massive amounts of data, documents, and records daily. Managing these documents, from client information to policy applications, can become tedious and time-consuming. However, with the help of low-code insurance platforms, companies can automate these repetitive tasks, saving time and effort.
Insurance companies can now easily automate their claims processing, policy underwriting, and other repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more critical business processes.
Learn more about Using Low-code to Automate Workflow Automation
2. Unified data system
Another advantage of low-code insurance platforms is that they provide a unified data system, which helps insurance companies access and manage data efficiently. With traditional legacy systems, data silos can develop, making it difficult for employees to access relevant information.
In fact, 7 out of 10 businesses in the US, the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands now rely heavily on low-code solutions partly due to improved data management.
Discover further: Centralize Everything With Low-code Data Integration: Top 5 Tools
3. Reduce budget and cost for technology
By reducing the need for custom development and the associated costs, low-code insurance platforms allow companies to reduce their budget and allocate more resources to other business areas
A report by the TEI indicates that companies that adopt low-code platforms can achieve cost savings of 24%.
4. Great flexibility for faster adaption
Insurance companies operate in an ever-changing landscape and must adapt quickly to changes. Low-code platforms offer great flexibility, allowing insurance companies freely adjust if their strategy or regulations change.
5. Boost collaboration between teams
Low-code insurance platforms can boost collaboration between these teams by providing a unified platform for communication and cooperation.
A study found there is a joint effort between IT and business on 59% of low-code initiatives. Insurance companies can now collaborate more effectively, increase productivity and create better results.
Every coin has 2 sides: Breakdown the Low-code Benefits & Disadvantages for Businesses
Ways to leverage low-code in insurance company
Here are some ways that insurance companies can leverage low-code platforms to improve their operations and stay ahead of the competition:
1. Subtle shifts in the digital landscape
A low-code insurance platform allows business users to build processes without waiting for IT. The platform can integrate with core systems or legacy platforms, allowing for quick rollout of new products. This includes on-demand solutions, new processes for insurers or brokers, refreshed online branding, and better understanding of customer usage.
2. Underwriting
Processes like rating, quoting, and policy issuance in underwriting can be streamlined using low-code for insurance. You will benefit from this because underwriters’ workloads are lightened, and they have better access to real-time consumer data, allowing for more precise decisions based on individual profiles.
3. Claims management
By automating steps like quote production, quote approval, and payment submission, low-code solutions speed up and simplify the claims process. Using such insurance claims management systems helps reduce the number of people needed to handle the claims. It may aid long-term revenue growth, profit margins, and loss ratio improvement.
4. Reporting
68% of IT professionals think low-code is practical for building vital apps, and 80% believe it can free up developer time for more advanced projects.
Insurance claims, loss adjustments, fraud detection, and audit compliance are some of the activities that may be automated using low code for insurance. Automating reporting helps companies see growth possibilities, reduce operational expenses, and eliminate bottlenecks.
5. Customer experiences
A sluggish online experience may mean missed sales and a less likely client to return. Insurers can provide the seamless, omnichannel digital experience their clients want more quickly, thanks to low-code platforms.
Some of the examples are:
- Self-service portal with FAQ pages
- Self-service portal where customer can track their insurance information
- Chatbots to interact with customer instantly. Here’re 10 Low-code Chatbot Platforms to use
- Integrate AI in call center and customer services departments for better support
- Customer mobile application
6. Compliance
Insurance companies must adapt more actively to the industry’s rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. Low-code platforms are an excellent tool for helping small and medium-sized insurers meet regulatory requirements by quickly modifying their workflows, business logic, rules, and user interface in a matter of hours. As a result, insurance companies may shift their attention to their clients and become more user- and community-focused.
How this insurance business successfully deployed low-code
To achieve its three strategic goals—customer centricity, simplicity, and innovation – Zurich Insurance, a corporation with a 146-year track record, has turned to agile development using low-code insurance.
Part of Zurich’s DevOps Team consists of engineers who used to work as business analysts, giving them an understanding of business needs and customer insights.
My Plans Portal is their most successful low-code application. It’s an online service consolidating a client’s pension and investment data in a single location, accessible upon a single login. This software integrates with Zurich’s Salesforce platform to provide feedback, which makes it possible to sequence any number of processes or operations.
Zurich can generate millions of pounds by adopting a culture of encouraging tech creation and digital transformation. At the same time, they guarantee solutions are implemented correctly on the first try with a low-code insurance platform.
Another suggestion: Low-code + insurance core system
Despite the low-code inability to fully realize an insurer’s vision, it excels at creating digital front-end experiences like agent portals and customer-facing websites for quotes and purchases.
A business user may want to design a application logic and processes for a niche and targeted audience. Since there’s no commercially available solution exists to meet this need, investing in the bespoke development is the only way to ensure a unique user experience.
With low code, the wish is attained. And the best part? The app can be easily integrated with the extensive capability of an insurance core platform.
The result? You provide customers with one-of-a-kind experience, backed by a high-performing back and centralized flow to manage their customers’ most important information.
Top low-code insurance platforms to use
A good low-code insurance platform should be secure, scalable, and flexible enough to deal with advanced processes, massive databases and advanced applications features.
Here is our recommendation on what low-code platforms to use for your insurance company. Also, if you are looking for more choices, here is the list of top 21 Low-code platforms to use!
- Microsoft PowerApps: As an enterprise-level low-code platform, PowerApps is highly secure and scalable with advanced features that can deal with complex requirements. You can easily integrate PowerApps for every employee if you have already purchased Office Suite. Learn how PowerApps automate complex purchasing processes for this digital insurance company.
- Outsystem: Aim for high performance, this low-code insurance platform is best for business process automation, cloud application, and customer management tools.
- QuickBase: With a focus on business process management and automation, QuickBase is best for fighting sluggish and bottlenecks in workflow and operation.
- Integrate.io: One of the best low-code insurance platforms to build on-cloud databases, data analytics, data warehouse and ETL integration tools for any industry and business size.
- UI Bakery: If you are a small and medium-sized business with a tight budget, UI Bakery is a great choice. With over 50 design components, integration tools, and work both on-cloud or on-premises, you can create any process automation with this tool.
- Salesforce Lightning: This only low-code product of Salesforce geared at developing scalable could applications and mobile apps. Lightning allows users to rapidly produce simple and advanced applications with reusable components. Also read: How Salesforce support this Wealth management company in onboarding customer within 24 mins.
Synodus is one of the first gold partners of Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce in APAC.
In case you are looking for consultation and development support in Low-code for Insurance, we have teams of experts to help you carry out robust applications and optimized automation processes. View our portfolio!
Wrapping up
A whopping 97% respondents to a poll said that their low-code experiences either met or surpassed their expectations. Incorporating cutting-edge technology is nothing new for the insurance sector. Businesses may quadruple their profits by embracing low-code insurance platforms. Routine chores like getting quotations, making purchases, and filling out paperwork for renewals and claims will be fastened, giving your employee time to focus on more impactful tasks.
More related posts from Low-code blog you shouldn’t skip:
