There’s a sense of urgency to modernize legacy systems, comply with regulatory demands, and manage resource constraints while maximizing the value of tech investments, such as automation, AI, ML, and RPA technologies. This highlights the need to adapt to constant change and future-proof IT investment.

Companies with a high level of digital maturity are already employing end-to-end process orchestration as the foundation required for this change. In this blog post, we discuss the current state of process orchestration, drawing insights from a survey of over 300 participants from the banking, financial services, and insurance industries, and over 800 total participants from multiple industries.

The growing divide in finance: automation and AI are on the rise, yet inefficiencies and legacy technology are still prevalent

A study from Deloitte shows that 92% of advanced automation adopters use end-to-end automation as a part of their strategy now, or plan to within the next three years. To stay competitive and meet growing customer expectations, financial institutions must leverage orchestration, automation, and AI, as reflected by our survey results.

AI and automation technologies in financial services

AI and automation technologies are on the rise in financial services, banking, and insurance.  Use cases include leveraging generative AI for creating personalized financial advice and reports, advanced AI-powered customer service chatbots, predictive analytics for risk management and fraud detection, AI in underwriting and claims processing, and AI-driven cybersecurity for real-time threat detection and response.

These advancements are significantly boosting efficiency across these industries. Yet, many—if not most—banks and financial organizations still struggle to successfully integrate them, due to their reliance on legacy technology.

Banks and financial services providers continue to face challenges with legacy systems

79% of respondents from banking and insurance said that legacy tech is keeping them from achieving hyperautomation. Transitioning away from legacy systems isn’t easy, either: 55% of respondents stated the shift from deeply entrenched monolithic platforms is a challenge at their organization.

This complication is due to several factors. First, these systems are deeply entrenched and integral to daily operations—they can’t simply be shut off without risking significant disruption to the business. Additionally, these legacy platforms often contain vast amounts of critical data and have been customized over many years to meet specific business needs, making modernization or migration projects highly complex and time-consuming.

Moreover, employees are accustomed to these systems. Transitioning to new platforms requires training to ensure they can effectively and efficiently use the new technology. There’s also the challenge of integrating new systems with existing ones, which can be technically demanding and costly.

Survey results: companies fear that increasing complexity leads to digital chaos

The widespread use of automation and AI technologies, such as machine learning, natural language processing, and RPA, leads to rapid technological advancements that introduce new complexities.

83% of respondents from banking and insurance expressed concern that a lack of control over automated systems may result in digital chaos or “automation Armageddon.” This apprehension is not unfounded, as 80% report that this lack of control has already led to an increased risk of core business processes failing to function properly.

Endpoints and components are exponentially increasing

One key driver of digital transformation is the complexity of the growing ecosystem. This leads to more connected applications, which significantly enhance functionality and user experience but also increase overall process complexity.

92% of respondents from insurance and 84% from banking said that the volume and diversity of components and endpoints across their company are increasing exponentially. Organizations in banking average about 51 components/endpoints (the highest from all industries), representing an 18% increase over the past five years.

This growth is driven by several factors. For example, nearly 70% of organizations in banking and insurance use enterprise applications, from enterprise resource planning systems such as Oracle to CRM tools like Salesforce. 67% of insurers and 65% of banks use task automation technologies, such as RPA or iPaaS. 

This complexity makes it challenging to streamline and gain visibility over operations. 85% agreed that as multiple automated tasks are combined, managing the overall end-to-end process becomes more complex.

AI and automation lead to challenges with regulatory compliance and risk management

89% of respondents (both from banking and insurance) stated that tightening regulations have increased process complexity. Managing compliance and risk becomes increasingly challenging as business processes grow more complex, digital, interconnected, and automated.

Typically, compliance teams inform lines of business about upcoming regulations and necessary changes. Business teams then collaborate with compliance and IT to implement these changes. This leads to delays and miscommunication, which can result in incorrect modifications.

Moreover, many organizations find scaling and operationalizing AI challenging:

• 84% of the insurance industry said that a lack of transparency into how AI applications and services are used within business processes leads to regulatory compliance problems.
• 94% agreed that AI applications and services must be orchestrated like any other endpoint within automated business processes to ensure compliance with regulations.

One example of such regulations is the EU AI Act, a comprehensive regulatory framework, that aims to ensure the safe and ethical use of AI across industries. It introduces stringent requirements for transparency, accountability, and risk management, adding to the complexity of compliance challenges.

An additional challenge of AI is the increasing technical debt. According to Accenture’s report, “Build your tech and balance your debt,” AI plays a significant role in this rise. Generative AI and enterprise applications have become the leading contributors to technical debt.

Misalignment between business and IT teams needs to be addressed

81% of respondents believe that having business processes locked up in “black box” legacy applications hinders their organization from achieving efficient end-to-end automation.

This also impacts communication between different departments. When business and IT teams aren’t aligned, it can significantly slow down automation projects.

• 62% of survey participants noted that business users and IT struggle to collaborate on individual processes or projects.
• 77% of respondents indicated that the lengthy process of designing and approving changes is a major bottleneck in their organization.
• 82% reported that miscommunication between teams often results in incorrect implementations or products being delivered to customers.

Companies can enhance the developer experience through effective process orchestration. Adopting open standards like BPMN and DMN helps teams visualize and simulate processes, improving collaboration and alignment. Standardization plays a crucial role in maintaining and protecting the intellectual property of processes, especially against talent turnover.

Another crucial element is composability: 94% of organizations have highlighted the importance of a composable architecture for the flexible integration of best-of-breed solutions. By reusing proven process components and safely sharing them with other lines of business and teams, organizations can customize these components to their needs, fostering a trust foundation that speeds time-to-market and enhances standardization.

Process orchestration provides companies with the intelligent, composable, scalable solution they need to tackle complexity

The increasing adoption of automation and AI technologies, alongside existing legacy systems, highlights the critical role of process orchestration in financial services. This orchestration encompasses operations, finance, and organizational culture, with a strong emphasis on business automation. The majority of survey respondents agreed that effective process orchestration is necessary to manage these complexities successfully.

• 85% of respondents agree that process orchestration is essential for digital transformation.
• 88% claim that hyperautomation cannot be achieved without process orchestration.
• 79% agree that reaching an autonomous enterprise is nearly impossible without process orchestration.

The future of process orchestration in financial services and insurance

Process orchestration is the necessary foundation for integrating automation, AI, and legacy systems. It enhances operational efficiency and ensures regulatory compliance and risk management. By adopting a robust orchestration platform, financial organizations can future-proof their operations, meet evolving customer expectations, and maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly challenging landscape.

Embracing process orchestration is no longer optional—it’s essential for thriving in the modern financial ecosystem. Institutions like Goldman Sachs, NatWest, and the National Bank of Canada have already adopted Camunda’s process orchestration to coordinate complex processes across people, systems, and devices, enhancing efficiency. These leading financial institutions recognize that digital transformation and end-to-end process orchestration go hand in hand to streamline workflows, eliminate redundancies, and leverage technology for operational excellence.

The post The State of Process Orchestration in 2025: What Does it Mean for Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance? appeared first on Camunda.

In his presentation, he discussed how embracing a modern process orchestration and automation tool like Camunda can lead to remarkable organizational change and set the stage for future growth. Shashidar (Shashi) shares their transformative journey from an outdated BPM tool to a Camunda-centered architecture, enhancing its claims processes and customer interactions with increased efficiency, visibility, compliance, and customization, all while delivering the exceptional customer service that customers now expect as standard.

CamundaCon allows fellow industry professionals and thought leaders to exchange practical insights and tactics, discover helpful hints and techniques, and participate in workshops, lectures, and process orchestration and automation events throughout the conference. If you’d like to know more, regardless of your familiarity with the Camunda community or process orchestration and automation, please check out our upcoming local and national events.

The challenge of outdated systems

The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance, boasting a rich history of 200 years, recognized that its old workflow system, established in 2004, was no longer adequate. The company’s legacy platform, responsible for approximately 650 essential workflows, was suddenly left without support when another provider acquired it. As a result, the outdated and unsupported system posed a security threat and hindered the efficiency of the customer experience due to its lack of a viable upgrade option.

Its tightly coupled architecture was now preventing the flexibility needed for the company’s future growth in the competitive, customer-centric, and agile insurance arena.

Legacy and outdated systems can be negative for process automation and orchestration best practices because they can lead to a number of challenges, including but not limited to:

• Decreased productivity: System downtime can lead to lost customers and decreased team member efficiency.
• Expensive maintenance: Outdated systems are more likely to fail, which can make them expensive to fix and maintain, and it is difficult to recruit staff with the knowledge to maintain custom or dated solutions.
• Frequent outages: Outdated software is less likely to be reliable and may break more often.
• Incompatibility: When older systems are combined with newer ones, issues such as data inconsistencies, system incompatibilities, and workflow disruptions can arise, leading to inefficiencies and potential downtime. Outdated data can cause disruptions and delays in process.
• Compliance: Compliance requirements often require the use of up-to-date and secure software.
• Lack of support: As communities move to newer technologies, support for older ones decreases, increasing the risk of security failure and without a clear upgrade route.
• Stuck in the past: Future-proofing process orchestration is crucial to ensure an organization’s workflows remain agile, scalable, and adaptable to evolving technological advancements and market demands, thereby maintaining operational efficiency and competitive edge over time.

According to Shashi, the need for modernization was clear and critical, and the company required a robust, API-driven, and decoupled orchestration and automation solution to modernize its claims operations, underwriting, and customer support and through which to incorporate helpful emerging technologies like AI.

The Camunda solution

After thorough consideration and proof-of-concept trials, Camunda stood out as the solution of choice due to its maturity, scalability, and flexibility. Adopting a microservices architecture, The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance could ensure seamless interactions and prepare for future technological shifts.

“We built customized components and deployed them quickly. The benefits we are witnessing from these are substantial. The Operate analytics are astounding, providing daily insights that have led to strategic and tactical decisions.”
– Shashi Ayachitam, IT Director, The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance.

Camunda offers decoupled orchestration through its remote workflow engine, which can be provisioned and configured separately from the application and process solution. This decoupling allows for a number of benefits, including:

• Independent scaling: The workflow engine can be scaled without affecting the application code.
• Easier troubleshooting: Issues can be easily identified in one component, and vulnerabilities are not spread to other components. 
• Software as a service: The workflow engine can be operated as a service, either in a public cloud or as an in-house service. 
• Local application development: Applications can connect remotely to the workflow engine, allowing for local or on-premise development.

Camunda is a process orchestration and automation platform that helps organizations design, automate, and improve processes and business rules. It plays a significant role in decoupling applications and processes in the following ways:

• Process engine abstraction: Camunda provides a process engine that acts as a layer of abstraction between business processes and the applications that perform the tasks within those processes. By defining processes in BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) and decisions in DMN (Decision Model and Notation), Camunda allows you to change and manage processes without modifying the underlying applications.
• Microservices orchestration: Camunda can orchestrate microservices by sending signals to start or complete tasks. This allows individual microservices to remain loosely coupled and focused on their specific functionality while the Camunda engine manages the state and order of process execution.
• External task pattern: Camunda supports the External Task pattern, where services outside the process engine handle long-running or resource-intensive tasks. These external tasks communicate with the process engine to fetch and complete work items. This decouples task execution from the workflow engine and allows different applications to work on tasks independently.
• Event-driven architecture: With Camunda, you can implement an event-driven architecture that triggers processes in response to events. Applications can publish events without being aware of the internal details of the processes they activate, thus decoupling the event producers from the process consumers.
• REST API and message queues: Camunda provides REST APIs and can integrate with message queues (like AMQP, Kafka, etc.), allowing applications to interact with the process engine without being directly linked. Applications can push and pull information from the process engine as needed, decoupling them from each other and the engine itself.
• Versioning and deployment: Camunda allows for versioning of process definitions. This means that new versions of a process can be deployed without affecting running instances of older versions. Applications can continue to operate with the process version they were designed for, providing a clear upgrade path without tightly coupling the application lifecycle to the process lifecycle.

By leveraging these features, Camunda enables organizations to maintain a clear separation between their business processes and the applications that support them, facilitating easier maintenance, scalability, and adaptability to change.

The results are in

In his presentation, Shashi discusses how the implementation of Camunda brought immediate and significant improvements:

• Processing time: Claim processing time was reduced by 35%, enhancing operational efficiency.
• Cost savings: Costs per claim lowered by 30%, contributing to financial health.
• Scalability: The solution facilitated expansion into new business areas and adaptability for further growth.

“We cut down 35% of the time in processing the claims and reduced 30% cost per claim since we went live with Camunda.”
– Shashi Ayachitam, IT Director, The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance.

Strategic partnerships cement success

To aid in development and implementation, The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance engaged with Camunda Platinum Partner NTConsult. Their expertise was invaluable to the successful transition. Shashi cites Camunda and NTConsult’s unwavering support as an invaluable part of the development and implementation process.

“There won’t be any disappointment [with Camunda]. We like it and will continue using Camunda and have NTConsult as our strategic partners for a long time.”
– Shashi Ayachitam, IT Director, The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance.

Streamlined processes have led to quicker resolutions, improved customer satisfaction, and provided a wealth of actionable insights, enabling better decision-making and IT efficiency. The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance plans to extend Camunda’s functionalities to underwriting and customer support. Additionally, they are exploring the integration of AI to enhance process automation further.

We also spoke to Shashi behind the scenes at CamundaCon NYC ‘24, where he candidly discussed their experience and the positive changes that implementing Camunda has afforded his team.

The presentation by Shashi Ayachitam illustrates the transformative power of Camunda’s process orchestration and automation capabilities, something we’re proud to bring to thousands of companies around the world (and even in space). This strategic move has not only resolved current operational challenges for The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance but has also opened doors to new possibilities, ensuring the company remains agile and competitive in the ever-evolving and fiercely competitive insurance market.

Learn more

To learn more about the journey of The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance, you can read their full case study here.

The post Transforming Legacy Workflows at The Norfolk & Dedham Group® Insurance appeared first on Camunda.

Let’s start by taking a look at how artificial intelligence enhances fairness in risk assessment for healthcare insurance underwriting.

Enhance risk assessment

With the introduction of AI into your organization’s processes and operations, you can analyze vast amounts of structured and unstructured data including medical records, genetics, and lifestyle habits, significantly enhancing the accuracy and scope of risk assessments. By identifying intricate patterns that may be missed by human analysis, AI provides more detailed and personalized evaluations of individual health risks.

AI enhances your underwriting models by focusing on individual health factors rather than relying on broad demographic categories. This approach minimizes the potential for biased assessments based on age, gender, or ethnicity, emphasizing the unique health profiles and behaviors of individuals instead.

If you take advantage of these capabilities of AI and integrate them into your underwriting process, you can make faster, more accurate decisions concerning risk. Models can be used to forecast potential health risks, likelihood of claims, and associated medical costs, which helps improve both the underwriting accuracy and the speed of making decisions. With natural language processing (NLP) automatically extracting relevant information from data, the information can be simplified and summarized in advance for underwriters streamlining the review process.

As shown in the example process below, prior to underwriter review, you can take advantage of AI to review and summarize various records as well as do an initial risk assessment. This streamlines the process and expedites the review by providing the underwriter with an overview of the applicant, extracting highlights and potential risks for the review process.

Additionally, machine learning continuously updates risk models with new data, allowing for ongoing improvement. This adaptability ensures that evaluations remain precise and aligned with evolving healthcare trends and risks.

Process orchestration and automation with AI

Now that we have addressed AI and risk assessment, let’s look at a few of the ways process orchestration and automation (PO&A) with AI can make a significant impact on your health insurance underwriting operations and provide fairer risk assessment.

Make decisions faster

Quick decisions can make or break the customer experience, but including AI in your process can help improve and even automate decisions for you.

There are several tasks that can be automated to help reduce the manual workload of underwriters. These can include policy renewals and eligibility checks, for example. By automating these repetitive tasks, you can speed up the underwriting process.

There are several different ways to automate these types of tasks, which can be further enhanced by adding AI in the mix. AI enables your process to pull real-time data from electronic health records (EHRs), wearable devices, and databases to make faster, more dynamic decisions.

Streamline workflow

Most underwriting process orchestrations have several decision points and steps, including data gathering, document processing, decision approval, and risk assessment. Integrating various systems, automating repetitive tasks and enhancing data gathering with AI can ensure faster and more efficient underwriting cycles.

With true process orchestration, you can provide cross-functional collaboration to coordinate tasks and communication between different departments sharing data across those teams. Automating processes improve both transparency and customer satisfaction by allowing staff to provide quicker, more informed feedback to customers and agents.

Improve accuracy and reduce bias

Consistency in processes and decisions is essential for fairness. AI models reduce human error and variability, leading to more uniform and impartial risk assessments across applicants.

AI minimizes biases that stem from subjective judgment or misinterpretation of data. When designed and trained on unbiased datasets, AI systems focus on objective, data-driven predictions, ensuring fair and equitable evaluations.

Achieve regulatory compliance and enhance fraud detection

Integrating AI with process orchestration will enable you to proactively track regulatory changes and compliance by simplifying the management and updates of underwriting guidelines and policies.

You can also use AI to help you identify unusual patterns and subsequently flag them as potential fraud, which helps to safeguard your organization against the risks associated with fraudulent activities. An example of this type of flagging can be seen below.

Transparency and Accountability

With a clearly defined process, you can use this information to justify any decisions that are made to insurers and regulators. This transparency helps build trust and ensures adherence to regulatory standards aimed at fairness. A true process orchestration solution with integrated AI can assist organizations to address regulations like the EU AI Act through this transparency and auditability of your process.

While AI can significantly improve fairness, it requires careful design and oversight to avoid perpetuating biases present in the training data. Ethical guidelines and rigorous testing are essential to ensure fairness in healthcare insurance underwriting. 

How Camunda can help

Camunda has a platform that allows organizations to integrate AI throughout your process by providing connectors to run certain models, and options like Camunda Copilot that uses generative AI to help simplify complex process modeling tasks. With Camunda Robotic Process Automation (RPA), you can automate repetitive tasks to streamline your underwriting process. You can also access legacy systems, such as your policy administration system, using RPA.

In fact, you can use Camunda RPA in combination with your own RPA tools in your process today because of our composable architecture. In addition, this architectural approach allows users to integrate and utilize AI models and connectors  where they add the most value leaving room to exchange them, if needed, in the future. This composability extends your solution to auditability and governance while remaining flexible for future requirements. This approach can significantly reduce your time to market (TTM).

With Camunda Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), you can simplify and automate how your documents are handled, minimizing manual errors and reducing operational costs typically associated with human-driven tasks. It enables you to extract actionable intelligence and insights from your documents, uncovering valuable information to enhance workflows, streamline processes, and support strategic decision-making.

You can also gain insights into your processes with Camunda Optimize. With Optimize, you can establish and monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs) and evaluate process consistency and bottlenecks.

Camunda provides an open and scalable platform to address your underwriting process.

What’s next?

Together, AI and process orchestration enable health insurers to optimize their underwriting processes, improving speed, accuracy, and efficiency while enhancing customer experience and profitability.

But, you don’t have to stop with the underwriting process. There is so much more you can achieve if you integrate AI and process orchestration into your organization. You can include process and AI into policy renewals, the appeals process, claims processing, policy changes like live events, and more.

The post Revolutionizing Health Insurance Underwriting: Harnessing AI for Smarter, Faster, and Fairer Risk Assessment appeared first on Camunda.

Many processes have an underwriting requirement, including:

• Loan origination
• Insurance policy acquisition
• Bank accounts
• And more

The key to underwriting is to make data-driven decisions about the worthiness of applicants for insurance, bank accounts, loans, etc. based on certain evaluation criteria. Implementing an automated underwriting system or process is a perfect way to augment manual underwriting processes where humans are responsible for assessing:

• Financial information
• Credit history
• Risk profile
• Other applicant-relevant information

Examples relevant to the above would include automated mortgage underwriting, automated loan underwriting and automated insurance underwriting.

Combining the automation of manual tasks with the ability to analyze extensive amounts of data from a wide range of sources helps organizations streamline and optimize the evaluation of applicant eligibility. By automating the process, you can swiftly and effectively handle large application volumes, resulting in faster decision-making and reduced administrative expenses for lenders and insurers.

Benefits of automated underwriting

To help you better understand automated underwriting and what it can do for your business, let’s take a look at some of its key components and features in the following table.

The underwriting process can benefit from automation in several areas. Many of these are quick to implement and some take more research and time. Here are some options to consider:

Clearly, you can realize so many benefits from automating your underwriting process, like enhanced decision accuracy, reduced costs, better customer service, and overall efficiency.

If you do decide to start automating your underwriting process, just be sure to follow all regulatory requirements, fair lending practices, and ethical standards. This will ensure that you can reap the benefits of automation while avoiding pitfalls around bias and discrimination.

Automating processes is one of the best ways to stay competitive in today’s marketplace.

Learn more

Learn more about how Camunda can help you with your automated underwriting needs with a free trial. Camunda is a powerful and flexible process orchestration platform that can help you automate your underwriting processes and drive lasting value.

Keep reading

Want to dive deeper into how automation can help with underwriting? Check out these blog posts

• A Guide to Automation in Insurance: Top Use Cases and Benefits [blog]
• Claims Processing Automation in Insurance: A Complete Guide [blog]
• Process Orchestration for Insurance Companies [resource]
• How to Align Your Insurance Processes with a Business Strategy [downloadable guide]

The post What is Automated Underwriting? appeared first on Camunda.

With Camunda powering your process orchestration, insurance organizations can create processes that can scale to any level, offering a distributed architecture designed for high transaction throughput. Camunda supports long running, end-to-end workflows using open-standard BPMN diagrams, allowing business units and IT teams to work together to improve automation in claims processing.

Orchestrating automobile claims with Camunda

Let’s assume that an insurance company has been tasked with streamlining the back office process for claims cases. The company focuses on the improvement of their Auto Claim Process. The first task is to research and document the current process. This includes determining which tasks are manual, what other departments and individuals are involved, and what additional systems are accessed in order to properly process claims. It is also important to gather the time required to complete various tasks as well as the costs involved: computer processing costs, working hour costs, and other associated costs.

In most cases, the following systems and departments are involved in the claims process:

• Claims Department and associated systems
• Policy Administration and associated systems
• Accounting – for payment processing – and associated systems
• Adjusters for determining automobile repair estimates
• Medical Adjusters for adjudicating associated medical claims

Note: This Glossary of Insurance Terms might help as you continue to read this post.

Once you have a solid understanding of the existing process, it is important to map out the claim process with the involved business units. Most organizations start simple and then continue to enhance the process to incorporate additional enhancements to your orchestration.

An example of a beginning to a possible automobile claim process might look something like the one displayed below.

This process, represented in Camunda Modeler, shows user tasks in yellow, subprocesses in blue and Connector tasks in green. This diagram illustrates the involvement of the following:

• The customer to initiate the claim by filling out a form
• Policy Administration to verify the policy is effective
• A Connector to generate the claim number
• The adjuster to contact the insured to schedule and complete the estimate
• Accounting to send the payment for the claim.

Along the way, the insured (or claimant) is notified via email of the claim status. Finally, the claims system is updated with the claim details for this customer.

This is an excellent start, but it involves the individual departments working directly in their native systems to complete tasks and doesn’t automate the process effectively.

Well-orchestrated automated insurance claims processing

The following process starts with the previous process and then takes full advantage of Camunda’s strengths, including standard Connectors, gateways, service tasks, webhooks and more.

Let’s dissect this process and how it orchestrates the automobile claim process as implemented with this Camunda process diagram.

To initiate the process, the insured will submit a claim with a form—created with Camunda Forms—that will be filled out with key information about the claim. This is indicated by the circle start event.

The process accesses the Policy Administration System using a REST Connector to confirm that the policy exists in the system. Based on the response, the claim process will be initiated as shown in the top branch, or it will require manual verification in the Claims Department to confirm the policy is valid so the claim can continue.

Using Camunda’s UiPath RPA Connector, a new claim number is generated in the mainframe Claims Management System. In order to properly manage claim cases, Camunda tightly integrates all systems involved in the claims process to provide a holistic view of the customer, the policy and the claim at all times.

In this media age, customers want to opt into status notifications. For this implementation, the process takes advantage of the reuse of subprocesses to provide those notifications as shown by the “notify” blue tasks in the model. The insured is notified throughout the process using both Camunda’s SendGrid Connector for email notification and Twilio SMS Connector for text messaging. Implementing a repeatable subprocess in this manner speeds up modeling and allows the reuse in other process models.

Now that a valid claim number has been generated and initial notifications have been made to the claimant, it is time to schedule the proper adjuster to review the damages and make an estimate on the vehicle repairs.

Using business rules implemented with Decision Model and Notation (DMN) the correct adjuster is selected based on the vehicle and geographical location of the claimant. The adjuster tasks are provided in another subprocess.

In this subprocess, an adjuster estimate form is generated using the Camunda Google Drive Connector with variables from the process to provide the adjuster with a template to use while performing the estimate. Camunda provides an out-of-the-box OpenAI Connector which is used to compose an email to the adjuster the claimant is waiting for an estimate. This email is then sent using our SendGrid Connector.

Simultaneously, a Slack message is made using an out-of-the-box Slack Connector. The adjuster accesses a form that provides a link to the adjuster estimate template created and provides a location to enter the final estimate figure and any specific comments using a human task.

Camunda provides the ability to save Connectors as templates so that the required fields are pre-populated to minimize the need to recreate them each time a configured Connector is utilized within a process.

Going back to the parent diagram—in parallel, if the claimant noted that an injury was involved when the claim was submitted, then the additional medical branch is processed. In claims cases, there are often various assets such as documents, photographs, medical reports and more. Most organizations have implemented an Electronic Content Management (ECM) system to manage these assets.

The process waits for a unique message tied to this claim indicating that the medical documents are available for viewing in the ECM system which is implemented here as a webhook in this process. Once received, the Medical Reviewer can view these documents using the link provided and make comments about the estimate for medical bills in the form provided.

When these branches merge, payment is sent through the Accounting Payment System to the claimant which is implemented as a service task—showing just another method that Camunda offers to integrate systems in your process.

Finally, the Claims Management System is updated with the final results of the claim making sure that all systems are properly orchestrated to manage the claim case.

Continuous process improvement and process insights

Once you have automated your claims process, it is important to be able to get a key understanding of the performance metrics around this process. For example, understanding how the organization is doing against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Moreover, with insight into the process, you can also begin to uncover any bottlenecks or areas of improvement to address.

Reports and dashboards can be created that give direct insight into how the process is performing. For example, what the overall processing time is and if any incidents have occurred.

Using dashboards and reports, you can look at data like heat maps that reveal heavy traffic at certain tasks in the process or those that might be taking additional time.

With the data captured, you can begin to look at trends in the process. For example, are certain vehicles involved in more claims than other vehicle types.

You can even begin to look at uneven distribution of work so that it can be streamlined in the future.

Having insight into your process positions you to continuously improve in the future.

The importance of claims processing automation

With a competitive insurance market, organizations must provide a quick and elevated response to claims for customer retention. With a well-orchestrated process, including different messaging options to keep claimants informed, claims can be processed more efficiently and faster. This not only improves customer satisfaction, but also helps to minimize human error and to meet and even exceed existing SLAs.

Try process orchestration and automate insurance claims today

Learn more about how process orchestration can help make your insurance organization run more efficiently and reduce costs, and get started with a free trial today.

The post Claims Processing Automation in Insurance: A Complete Guide appeared first on Camunda.

Automation in insurance is quickly emerging as a game-changer for firms looking to get or maintain a competitive edge.

By replacing manual processes with automated ones, insurers can streamline their operations, reduce redundancies, and eliminate human errors that often lead to costly mistakes. 

How do you automate insurance? In this blog we’re going to delve into specifics and explore how automation is revolutionizing the insurance industry, one process at a time. 

How automation is changing insurance

Insurers are dealing with a complex regulatory environment, process risk, competitive pressures, and the need for seamless customer experiences. Using automation can help you accomplish all of those and at scale.

Consider this: Making a single-digit change within pricing in a legacy system can take weeks or even months to complete. It’s like trying to turn a cruise ship – slow, cumbersome, and fraught with potential pitfalls. Now imagine a speedboat that can make quick turns and adjustments on the fly. 

That’s what automation brings to the table.

Seven use cases for automation in insurance

Even as recently as a few years ago, insurers have been hamstrung by traditional systems that might date back to the 1960’s and 1970’s. These monolithic platforms were so mission critical that it became nearly impossible to make changes in the ensuing decades even as software development methods changed. 

However, with the advent of automation and process orchestration, insurers can now break down these monolithic systems into more manageable, scalable ones. Here are some key use cases that highlight how automation is changing the game in insurance.

Launching digital transformation initiatives

Legacy systems, though mission-critical, are often cited as a roadblock to innovation and growth. Leading firms, according to PwC, are capable of “identify[ing] new product categories (as opposed to just adding new features) and have the brand strength to deliver them.” By automating various processes, insurers can deconstruct these systems into more composable elements, paving the way for digital transformation. This not only enhances operational efficiency but also offers the flexibility to adapt to changing market dynamics and scale.

Streamlining claims processing

Most times a customer is dealing with their insurer it’s going to be about a claim. 

This makes claims processing one area that can greatly benefit from digital transformation efforts. With automated workflows, insurers can expedite the claims resolution process, leading to improved customer satisfaction. No more long waiting periods or tedious paperwork; just quick, efficient service that keeps customers happy and loyal.

Speeding up risk assessment for new customers

Let’s face it—as customers we’re more impatient than ever. Whenever customers are interacting with brands, they often expect immediate or near immediate responses. They won’t wait for days or even hours to get approval for insurance. Automation enables insurers to conduct risk assessments quickly and accurately, making the customer onboarding experience far smoother. 

Adopting usage-based insurance (UBI)

“Usage-based insurance programs,” writes Forbes “generally measure speeding, acceleration and harsh braking, along with mileage and the time of day you drive”. With the growing popularity of UBI, insurers need to keep up with daily adjustments in how customers utilize their insurance. Manual methods can be time-consuming and error-prone. However, automation can make this process a piece of cake, enabling insurers to adjust premiums effectively and efficiently.

Reducing manual document reviews

Insurance firms certainly don’t lack documentation. Some of the information necessary for proper risk management can be complex and time-consuming to review meaning it requires human intervention. Automation can handle bulk (yet simpler) document reviews, freeing up employees to focus on more sensitive or unique issues. Likewise, it can ensure that those high-touch tasks are escalated to the right person for intervention. This not only improves productivity but also ensures a higher degree of accuracy in document processing.

Bolstering data security

According to the 2023 DBIR by Verizon, data breaches remain a significant threat to the insurance industry. All told, their research found 1,832 incidents of which 480 included confirmed data disclosure. Automation can enhance data security by implementing robust security protocols and ensuring end-to-end protection. Moreover, it can help insurers comply with various regulatory requirements, thereby reducing the risk of non-compliance and associated penalties.

Managing policies efficiently

Policy management is another area where automation can make a big difference. From policy issuance to renewals and modifications, automation can handle various tasks efficiently, reducing manual intervention and potential errors.

How to adopt automation in insurance

With so many options, it can be tough to choose just one place to start. Let’s dig into exactly how to implement automation effectively within your firm.

Starting with a Proof-of-Concept (PoC)

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, well, for automation that step is your proof-of-concept (PoC). A PoC is a small-scale implementation designed to validate your architecture and technology stack. You’ve got to dip your toes in the water first before you’re cannonballing in the deep end.

The PoC should focus on a specific use case. For instance, Generali Switzerland focused on auditing processes and keeping detailed, searchable historical records in a user-friendly format for compliance purposes. By keeping their focus narrow, they were able to gauge the effectiveness of automation in that area and make necessary adjustments. Remember, the goal here isn’t to achieve perfection but to learn and improve.

Moving onto a lighthouse project

Once you’ve validated your PoC, it’s time to take on a more ambitious task—a lighthouse project. This project has a broader scope and a more realistic setting, serving as a beacon for future automation initiatives. Continuing the metaphor, it’s like the torch that’ll illuminate for the ships to come in the future.

The lighthouse project should aim to solve a real business problem, demonstrating the value of automation to stakeholders. For instance, you could automate the entire claims process, from submission to resolution. Not only would this result in quicker claim settlements but also free up your staff’s time to focus on more strategic tasks.

Establishing an automation Center of Excellence (CoE)

As you progress on your automation journey, you’ll need a guiding force. That’s where an Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) comes in. The CoE is a dedicated team responsible for assessing current solutions, evaluating tools, providing training, and assisting teams with their use cases. It’s like having a team of automation experts at your disposal, ready to help you navigate the complex world of automation.

The CoE should not become a bottleneck, but rather empower teams to kick off their own automation efforts quickly and efficiently. The goal is to create a culture of innovation where teams feel confident to experiment with automation and learn from their experiences.

Expanding process automation across the organization

Once you’ve tasted success with your initial projects, it’s time to expand. This could mean scaling up existing projects or launching new ones. The extent of this expansion largely depends on your organizational culture. 

Some firms might prefer to keep automation confined to specific areas, while others might want to use the same platform across the organization.

Regardless of the approach, the key is to maintain momentum. Remember the saying, “If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind?” That’s especially true with how quickly digitalization is moving. 

By continually expanding your automation efforts, you can stay ahead of the curve and deliver superior customer experiences

Empowering teams to drive automation

Finally, remember that automation isn’t just a technology initiative; it’s a cultural shift. To truly reap the benefits of automation, you need to understand where you’re starting from. 

Consider ranking your organization on Camunda’s Process Orchestration Maturity Model to better understand the challenges your organization is facing in meeting automation goals. By using this framework, you’ll be able to understand where your organization stands across five different drivers to rank your automation program from 0 (no process organization) to 4 (strategic, scaled adoption).

It’s only through understanding that you can empower your teams to drive toward success. 

Provide them with the necessary training and resources, encourage them to experiment, and celebrate their successes. By doing so, you can foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, propelling your firm towards a brighter, more automated future.

Insurance automation doesn’t have to be difficult

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Your automation program won’t be implemented that quickly within your insurance firm either. 

It requires careful planning, execution, and continuous improvement. 

But with the right approach, you can transform your operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and secure a competitive edge. So, are you ready to embark on this exciting journey? 

The time to automate is now—so what are you waiting for? Try out Camunda free for 30 days.

The post A Guide to Automation in Insurance: Top Use Cases and Benefits appeared first on Camunda.