The hidden value in unstructured insurance data

Every single day, consumers generate unimaginable amounts of data, and the volume only increases as more processes go digital. According to Accenture, 80% of all data is unstructured, produced in emails, transaction reports, customer support messages, social media posts, and more. Virtually any information an enterprise collects is unstructured unless it’s captured in a template.

AI technology has made it easier for companies to manage and make use of their unstructured data. Now, even the insurance industry is looking to capitalize on their information to drive value for customers, as well as their profit. As intelligent automation becomes more widespread, the way companies leverage unstructured data will differentiate them from other insurers in the market. In fact, in our increasingly digital world, being able to leverage unstructured data is a significant competitive advantage.

Why unstructured data is so valuable to insurers

To be successful, insurance companies must strike a delicate balance between creating value for customers and protecting their interests. The more information they have to design products and determine premiums, the better they can achieve and maintain this balance. Every insurer already has a wealth of unstructured data just waiting to be leveraged. Unlocking its value will help

Free up resources

Underwriters need incredibly complex information to do their jobs effectively — but it’s all locked away as unstructured data in an increasingly complex array of documents. AI tools can automate the work of capturing unstructured data, freeing adjusters to focus on more valuable work, such as researching and writing settlement offers and processing unexpected claims more quickly and accurately. Eliminating busy, mundane work is also a crucial component of improving employee satisfaction, which reduces turnover.

Improve customer service

Unstructured data isn’t just limited to official documents — it also comes through other channels like emails, social media, online chats, and phone calls. If insurers can uncover patterns in the data, they can develop strategies to better handle customer queries or make changes that avoid issues entirely. AI’s natural language processing can even understand the unstructured data in emails and detect their intent. This allows each message to get processed faster and improve customer satisfaction, because there’s less need for manual review.  

Create more customized products

Patterns in unstructured data can also reveal unmet customer needs. If a number of customers express a particular concern to representatives, that could inspire a new product to address it. In other instances, underwriters could analyze unstructured data to create completely unique coverage tailored to each customer at a price point they can afford.

How AI helps master unstructured data

For any of this value to be realized, insurers need to actually process and categorize their unstructured data to put it to good use. Putting all this responsibility on workers is out of the question. The labor is too expensive and increases risk of costly data leaks and HIPAA violations on top of that. And to top it all off, the work is incredibly tedious and draining, which will result in high turnover and hiring woes.

What insurers really need to unlock the value of their unstructured data is an AI platform that’s designed for intelligent document processing. The right system will virtually eliminate manual data entry with data extraction. This feature reads documents, categorizes information, and outputs it to a database or other desired destination. Not only does it bypass the need for typing — it bypasses the need for any significant human review. This frees insurers to intake even more unstructured data, improving underwriting accuracy without slowing down the process.
For years, experts have evangelized about the incredible opportunities automation and AI will bring to the insurance industry. But the technology isn’t just about opening up new possibilities. With unstructured data, it’s about helping insurers make use of what they already have. Experience how Automation Hero can help streamline unstructured data capture in a free demo.