Intelligent automation platforms promise speed, efficiency, and smarter decision-making for the modern insurance enterprise.
But with so many automation solutions on the market, choosing between these platforms can be difficult, and it’s not always clear when new platforms are warranted.
How do you estimate your prospective return on investment (ROI) for each of these platforms?
The Potential of Automation for the Insurance Industry
As AI-powered automation for the Insurance industry can be extremely valuable, in the right contexts and applications. At a baseline, automation tools should be able to help you streamline your workflows, execute predictable tasks, and keep your institution more organized. If you tap into the full power of the AI capabilities of these platforms, you can use them to analyze data, generate insights, and ultimately inform better business decisions.
In general, these platforms can help you save money, save time, better allocate your internal resources, improve consistency, and more. But it’s also important to recognize that almost all technologies come with costs. Not only will you need to plan for subscription costs and integration costs, but you’ll also need to think about the time it takes to train people to use these tools and the potential drawbacks for your organization.
Why Estimating ROI Is Helpful
The Return on investment (ROI) is a measurement used in a variety of industries and applications, designed to estimate how much value a given resource returns to you, when compared to how much you spent on it. While often associated with the world of investments, it can also apply to the investment you make in intelligent automation platforms for your insurance enterprise.
It’s useful to directly compare the benefits of intelligent automation to its costs. This way, you can decide whether the tool is really worth using, and whether the tool is the best in its class.
The ROI Equation for Software Platforms
At the highest level, ROI is easy to conceptualize. It only requires you to compare the costs of a given resource to the benefits it provides.
When it comes to intelligent automation platforms for insurance, these are some of the biggest costs you need to factor in:
Subscription costs. One of the most obvious costs you’ll need to consider is subscription costs. How much are you going to spend on this tool to continue using it? How might those prices change in the future?Integration costs. What are you going to spend on integration with other tools in your network? What other costs might you incur by working this tool into your system?
Education and training costs. How much are you going to spend in terms of both time and money training and educating your users? This is one reason why it’s so important to look for tools that are easy to use.
Additional support & resourcing. Are you going to spend additional time or resources to adopt, integrate, and continue using this tool? Factor in any internal support or staffing needs required to keep it running smoothly.
These are some of the most important benefits to factor into your equation:
Time saved. The gold standard for most automation tools is time saved. Ideally, each intelligent automation tool in your tech stack should save dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of man hours.
Cost reduction. In parallel, consider how the platform reduces spending. Are there roles you can reassign or tools you can decommission? What types of operational friction or inefficiencies are you avoiding?
Improved customer journeys. Positive customer experiences can also be measurably valuable for insurance companies. If a customer has a much smoother, more streamlined initial experience with your business, they might be more likely to purchase an insurance policy, and you might be more likely to retain them. It’s hard to calculate a concrete number here, but you can at least conduct an estimate.
Future potential and scalability. Don’t forget about the future potential of this tool, along with its scalability. It might be able to offer your business even more benefits in the future, especially as you take on more customers.
Business decision impact. When it comes to intelligent automation, you also need to factor in its potential impact on your business decisions. Even a single moment of positive influence can lead to massive gains for your company.
Don’t worry about needing to have perfect data to make a smart decision. Estimating ROI is about gaining directional clarity. Understand the balance of costs and benefits with respect to the intelligent automation platforms you consider, so you can ultimately choose the right solution for your organization.
Read more:
How to Estimate the ROI of Intelligent Automation Platforms for Insurance