05/09/08 A New Technology Breakthrough for Travel Insurance Claims

A decision making tool that automatically assesses travel insurance claims has been launched to market and is set to save the industry millions.

With the credit crunch upon us, travel insurance becomes even more price sensitive and with this in mind, insurers must look at new ways of saving money and with expert system technology poised to begin generating millions of pounds in savings, this could very well be the answer.

Expert system technology already exists in many sales environments: An operator simply answers a series of system driven questions and a bespoke quote is automatically generated. However, this technology has failed to make any significant impression in the area of travel insurance claims which remains highly skills-dependent.

Rightpath Insurance Solutions Ltd. (www.rpisolutions.com) has produced Automated Travel Insurance Claims Systems (ATICS) which take a series of answers and automatically generates a claims assessment. It is the first independent tool of its kind written specifically for travel insurance claims.

With this technology insurers can now get their claims experts to focus on managing very complex cases whilst allowing lower skilled staff to process the bulk of the volume.

Managing Director, Andrew Commins, says “We believe the reason this software has not been produced before is the level of intricacy that exists within a typical travel insurance product. When you look at all of the possible permutations of a travel insurance claim you begin to understand why it has failed to be introduced previously. We used an industry leading development tool, and our end product was 20x bigger than anything it has had to support previously.”

When commenting on the extent of its value, Andrew explained that “The range in benefits is simply phenomenal. From a financial perspective, in an environment of 50,000 claims a year, we would estimate net savings of well over £1 million, each and every year. These span many areas including operational costs, fraud protection, and claims leakage. However, it also boasts massive MI potential and allows for major advances in customer experience, both of which can play significant strategic roles.”

Publication Details

• International Travel Insurance Journal (ITIJ) Issue 94