This document gives an overview of RPA and its application in Insurance Industry. I have tried to identify processes which could be automated.

1. Robotic Process Automation in Insurance
Industry
Navin P N

2. Overview
In today’s world, companies are looking at
improving their operational efficiency and cutting
down cost. Companies are exploring various new
technologies to automate their mundane tasks.
Also, with the millennial generation being the
majority of the population and with the advent of
new technologies, customer experience has taken
a whole new meaning. The millennial generation
has become a driving force for change. With access
to latest devices, customers demand better quality
of service and immediate response to their queries.
This has forced companies to become agile and
automate most of their backend operations to
improve the turnaround time.
Insurance companies are not spared either.
Insurance companies have to be agile and provide
right information regarding various products if they
want a higher probability of converting potential
leads and quotes to policies.
Insurance companies are facing a common
challenge: How can they build a high growth
business and improve customer experience while
reducing the operational expenditure?
RPA and its benefits
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an emerging
technology that can emulate humans and perform
transactional and administrative tasks. RPA works
best when the processes are rule-based, repetitive
and have high volume. Most of the Insurance back
end operations like data entry, application
processing fit into this framework. Hence
Insurance companies are looking at RPA as a
solution to automate their back end operations,
minimize operational risk and improve customer
experience.
Most technologies like BPM, workflow create
value, but do not replace the repetitive tasks
performed by human beings. RPA creates a virtual
workforce that emulates humans and frees up 20-
30% of capacity at an enterprise level. Unlike other
technologies RPA can be deployed over the existing
systems and benefits can be seen immediately.
Furthermore, RPA can automate the end to end
lifecycle by integrating new front end digital
technologies with back office environments.
How RPA Can Benefit Insurance
Companies?
In today’s world, most of the Insurance companies
have their data stored in legacy systems. Though
the process of issuing quotes and underwriting a
policy looks simple from outside, Insurance
companies face challenges with retrieving the data
and assessing the risk. While generating a quote
for a policy is relatively simple, underwriting a
policy does require a lot of information from
different systems. Unlike other digital solutions,
RPA can be implemented over the existing systems.
This helps in seeing benefits at a faster rate
compared to other digital solutions.
New Business Processing and Underwriting: New
business process is manual and paper intensive.
This combined with the usage of legacy systems
causes a delay in customer onboarding process and
generation of quote document for customers. In
order to cope with the demand, companies are
becoming staff intensive. As people expect better
service at a faster rate, companies are compelled to
automate their process and improve the
turnaround time. Assessing the risk and
underwriting the policy requires accessing
information from different systems and this further

3. delays the issuing of policy. Implementing RPA
over the existing systems will speed up the
execution and help in better conversion rate from
issuing quote to booking a policy.
Policy Administration: Policy administration is one
of the critical activities which cover entire
insurance service chain. Policy Administration
system is used to issue quotes, bind and book a
policy, create endorsements, add midterm
adjustments and generate renewals. This process
involves a lot data processing and data validation.
The policy processing and renewals are mostly rule
based and high volume. Policy administration is
used to service the existing clients and provide
better customer service. Reducing the processing
time and improving the accuracy is very critical for
companies to have a competitive edge over its
competitors. Considering all the above points,
policy administration makes a very good contender
for implementing RPA.
Claims Management: Claims processing is one of
the important activity which will help insurance
companies meet its commitment to customers.
This process is manual and requires human
judgment. Claims process is heavily dependent on
the processing speed and the accuracy with which
it is assessed. With most companies using legacy
systems, the processing time increases causing
frustrations among customers. Customers are very
demanding and expect speedy processing of their
claims. Also, with stringent regulations in place,
insurance companies have to be very accurate
while processing the claims as it can result in huge
penalties. Hence this process makes a good
contender for RPA. Robots can be implemented for
repetitive work like data entry and free up the time
of employees which can be better utilized in work
that requires higher level of thinking and judgment.
Also, small claims that are within the threshold and
do not require human judgment can be processed
automatically.
Identify Process Types Fit for Automation
Though RPA along with other digital tools can be applied to automate most of the business process, organizations
have to identify and prioritize the process according to their complexity and feasibility in order to gain maximum
benefits from RPA. Below is a phase wise approach for selecting and implementing RPA for various business
processes.
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
 Process which are
manual intensive,
repetitive and have
high volumes
 Process should be
rule based
 Structured data
should be available
readily
 Eg : Document
verification
 Process which
require complex
decision making and
is knowledge based
 Process should have
low frequency and
low volume
 Eg: Underwriting
 Process which are of
medium frequency
and are knowledge
based and requires
continuous learning

4. Insurance Process Fit for RPA
Sales & Underwriting Customer onboarding
Policy Administration Claims Management
Conclusion
In the current world of advanced technologies, full potential can be extracted only if RPA is deployed effectively.
Robotic Process Automation though has a lot of benefits will be beneficial to companies only if right processes
are identified and automated. For the implementation to be successful, organizations should have a proper
structure, and all stakeholders have to align to a common goal.
Rule based
Human judgment required