AI in document digitization transforming life insurance

Document and form-based work form the basis for daily business in most processes. This involves long hours of reviewing documents and manual work leading to longer waiting times for customers. Hence, insurance companies need a holistic solution that addresses the current challenges of handling a large set of information coming in physical form.

The insurance carriers need to perfectly paint a long-term roadmap that will enable experts to digitize documents by applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. AI in document digitization can help insurance companies address these problems and improve process efficiency down the road. First, however, before getting too deep, let us understand the basics of the digitization process.

What is the digitization process?

With the data accumulated and organized in repositories and databases in an unstructured manner, in most cases, across multiple digital forms, it becomes imperative for the organization to convert them into actionable insights by applying AI-powered digitization solutions. Hence, data digitization is transforming company information and documents from analog to digital form, making data readily available and consumable by machines and the human workforce.

With the insurance industry sensing potential of document digitization solutions, the domain has begun to implement these document digitization services. Consequently, the industry, particularly life insurance, has started to take transformational leaps at a commendable pace. But the point is, how?

Managing semi-structured and unstructured documents

Did you know that 80% of documents processed by insurance companies contain mostly unstructured content? Moreover, 85-90% need manual effort to extract, validate and convert the data into usable ones.¹

Processing an over-abundance of semi-structured and unstructured documents is a daunting task. It needs a substantial manual force to transform them into actionable data. Hence, it becomes imperative for the insurance players to address this concern with an appropriate strategic approach.

However, the problem does not end here. Unstructured documents are amplifying by 55 to 65% every year.² Therefore, the challenge of document storage and management is mounting every year for the insurance carriers. This is further making the document classification part more difficult due to handwritten notes and variable formats, hence becoming more susceptible to errors.

Data of customers is the most significant resource of the insurance industry, whether it is customer onboarding, underwriting, quoting, claims, policy servicing, and handling. However, with this plethora of documents in repositories, insurance firms find it difficult to manage large volumes of documents and form-based processes. Adding to it, the semi-structured and unstructured ones need substantial labor-intensive effort. Furthermore, the complicated, distributed, and legacy infrastructure also affects the operational efficiency and customer experience.

Document digitization – Reshaping the life insurance industry

Despite a range of prospects from AI document digitization, the insurance players must avoid pitfalls and take significant steps in their strategic approach toward transformation. The life insurance carriers must prioritize and sequence their digital initiatives and implement a proactive way of working on designing the digital capabilities and quickly unveiling them. Therefore, it is high time that the industry increases its investments massively in the digitization plan and applies two-speed IT to make sufficient progress without getting slowed down by the replacement of legacy systems.

With the companies eyeing growth, it is now apparent that the reliance of the firms on emerging technologies is bound to increase for driving efficiency, productivity, and increasing the associated capabilities within the processes of the organization.

For instance, XtractEdge, Document AI platform by EdgeVerve, effectivelyhelps insurance companies to achieve efficient benefits from multiple insurance documents. Recognized ed as one of the top document AI solutions, XtractEdge promises quick-time delivery, swifter processing of claims, and efficient management of contracts for correct and timely decision making.