Transforming the Insurance Sector with the Power Platform

In today’s digital landscape, Microsoft’s Power Platform has emerged as a front-runner for low-code business solutions, that help organisations streamline business processes, elevate customer experiences, improve data visibility and much more. 

We often get asked, is my organisation in the right industry for the Power Platform to be useful? The answer is simple; these business solutions are not limited to a certain industry, and in fact, can be beneficial for almost anyone. 

An industry that we often get asked about is the insurance sector. Insurance companies are often working with complex business processes, and find that off-the-shelf solutions usually do not fit around their unique needs. Therefore, many organisations turn to the Power Platform to find a solution that can support their individual requirements and processes.  

This blog will cover how the Power Platform can support insurance companies to revolutionise the way that this sector operates. 

Customisable solutions for your insurance company with Power Apps

Have you ever wanted an application that solves a specific business need, but there is no solution for it on the market? Power Apps can solve this problem, as an application can be built from scratch, and completely customised to your processes.

We understand it can be difficult to imagine what an application may look like, so we have come up with a few examples below:

1. Streamline policy management

Policies often play a significant role in insurance companies, however, managing these can be difficult especially when there is a high volume and various types. Additionally, policy documentation is usually very individual to the business, and due to this, it can be especially challenging to find an application that covers all necessary requirements. 

In a scenario like this, a Power App can be extremely useful, as an application can be created that supports your employees with policy creation, renewals, and modifications. All features within the app are specifically designed to fit around your business processes and as such, will make it easier than ever to effectively manage policies.  

2. Enhance collaboration between renewals, sales, and marketing teams

Without a solution in place, it is easy for insurance companies to lose out on opportunities due to inefficient communication between departments.  

For example, if the marketing team does not liaise with the sales team effectively about qualified leads, then the sales team will have a lower chance of progressing effectively. Alternatively, if the renewals and customer service teams do not work well together, then a customer might have a negative experience and not renew. These are just a couple of simple examples that demonstrate how departments may struggle to work together without a solution in place. 

To overcome this, a Power App can be created that connects all departments making crucial information available to those who need it at the touch of a button. Any changes that are made are updated in real-time, ensuring that employees are working with the best possible information. 

3. Easily log claims whilst not at your desk  

Many insurance companies have employees that go to client sites to log and verify insurance claims. However, it can be difficult to find an off-the-shelf solution that covers your specific claims process requirements, presenting challenges for workers on the go.   

A Power App can be built for this scenario, allowing remote workers to access and record any relevant information on a case. As a result, claims can be processed quickly and efficiently. 

The application can also be developed to cover various requirements, including those for office employees, so employees can use it at all points of the claims process. This ensures that all information is kept within the same space and makes it easier to gain insights into cases, have a clearer understanding of the entire claims process and support your employees effectively.  

Power Automate and the Insurance Sector

Across many businesses, manual administrative tasks often take up a significant amount of time, and this is no different for insurance companies. These time-consuming activities prevent employees from conducting work that drives real business value, and due to their manual nature are also prone to human error. Finding a way to automate them would be beneficial, and Power Automate can support with this. 

Microsoft Power Automate can automate simple to complex workflows within your organisation. These flows are not restricted to operating between Microsoft systems only and can be used across a large variety of other systems as well. Once a Power Automate flow is implemented it will run all on its own and if any adjustments need to be made, it is still easy to do so. 

Examples of common Power Automate scenarios for insurance companies:

Renewals

A client is due to renew their current policy and to do so, might fill out a renewal form from a portal or email. Under normal circumstances, an employee has to take manual action to update the information in the system. However, with Power Automate this can be avoided.  

A flow can be created that automatically transfers the completed form information into your CRM system and updates the relevant record/s. Additionally, a second flow can be set-up to inform the account manager responsible and provide a summary of any further action that is required. This significantly reduces the time that employees spend on data entry and updating information, so users can spend time adding value at other stages of the renewal journey. 

Employee tasks

We all know how it feels to be juggling lots of different tasks at the same time, and will be familiar with that feeling of losing track, particularly if you’re jumping between applications. 

To overcome this, a Power Automate flow can be created to automatically send a reminder email if a task has not been completed in the necessary time period, or if an email has not been replied to within a set time frame. 

These are just two common scenarios that we have seen Power Automate be particularly useful, however, there are over 250 connectors, and the solution can work for lots of different scenarios. If you would like more information, please get in touch with us.  

Additionally, check out our blog post, with more Power Automate examples. 

Be a master of your data insurance data with Power BI

Insurance companies often have access to significant amounts of data; however, this is usually not being used to its fullest potential. The reasons for this vary, however, we have seen some commonalities across the industry: 

• Insurance companies can have data stored across multiple systems/spreadsheets, making it hard to accumulate all the data they need  
• Complex business processes can make even the simplest data analysis difficult  

However, to make successful strategic decisions, it is crucial that a business can truly understand its data. A solution that many of our insurance clients have found extremely useful, is Microsoft Power BI; an application designed to support with data visualisation and analysis. 

Now you may ask what makes Power BI so well suited to the insurance sector. There are many reasons why, but we have covered the main ones below: 

Data visualisation:

Power BI has advanced data visualisation capabilities and is therefore well suited to display the complex data of insurance companies. It is easy to create interactive dashboards and reports to display key information in an easy-to-read format. This helps insurance professionals gain in-depth insights, easily identify trends and from this make informed strategic decisions.  

Data integration:

Insurance companies deal with vast amounts of data from various sources, such as policy information, claims, customer data, financial records and more. Power BI seamlessly integrates with multiple data sources, allowing insurance organisations to quickly collate and analyse data. 

Insights in real-time: 

Timely and accurate data analysis is crucial in the insurance sector to detect fraud, identify risks, and optimise business processes. Power BI has the ability to display insights in real-time enabling insurance organisations to swiftly respond to emerging trends, risks and anomalies.   

Create value for your insurance customers with Power Pages

Microsoft Power Pages enables businesses to design, configure and publish websites that seamlessly work across web browsers and mobile devices. These websites allow both internal and external users to interact with your data, and seamlessly integrate with other applications in Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.  

One of the most common uses of Power Pages for the insurance sector is to create a Customer Portal, providing customers with an easy way to access and update their documentation. In the portal, they could also raise questions, review policies, check policy statuses, manage renewals, raise claims, make payments, and more.  

Ultimately, the flexibility of a creating a portal with Power Pages means that that it can be designed exactly to suit your individual requirements and what you are trying to achieve.  

Do you have any other questions regarding the Power Platform and the insurance sector? Then please get in touch with us by filling out the contact form, emailing us at   info@pragmatiq.co.uk, or calling us on 01908 038110 and our expert team will be more than happy to help you.