This is article #7 of 7 in the series on optimizing insurance innovation and productivity through AI and cloud communications. 

The insurance industry faces a mix of challenges: economic uncertainty, pricing pressures, and the rise of nimble, tech-savvy competitors. Insurance leaders must discover new ways to innovate and adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations to thrive in this environment and stay price competitive.

Adopting AI-infused cloud communications is a proven strategy for fostering innovation, efficiency and agility. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offers numerous benefits, including increased workforce flexibility, enhanced business agility, and improved security and compliance.  With the addition of generative AI (GenAI) and robust APIs, insurance firms can vastly increase their productivity and effectiveness.

Embracing digital transformation in insurance

Insurers today are under immense pressure to innovate and improve their operations to stay ahead of the competition. Traditionally that has meant striving for better customer interactions, efficient claims processing, and attentive servicing of policyholders’ accounts. Top-performing companies are broadening and diversifying their offerings to adapt to the changing needs of their clients. They’re expanding their use of digital channels, data-driven insights, and AI.

Cloud-based digital transformation has been a strategic enabler of these changes. Given the nature of the insurance industry, digital communication technology is a primary driver of innovation, making UCaaS an especially important element in an overall transformation strategy.  

The transition to digital-first operations is not without its challenges. Many insurers are still burdened with legacy systems and processes that impede agility and hinder their ability to innovate. To overcome these challenges, insurers must simplify their technology stack, focusing on holistic, integrated solutions, and migrate to the cloud. This shift enables them to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and unlock new revenue streams.

Let’s explore some of the benefits of this approach.

Enabling mobility for a hybrid workforce

The rise of remote work has fundamentally changed how businesses operate, and the insurance industry is no exception. A McKinsey Global Institute analysis found that the insurance industry is highly suited to remote work; more so, in fact, than any other sector of our economy. According to the Insurance Information Institute, nearly 68 percent of insurance employees work remotely more than three days a week. Activities like analysis, claims processing, and underwriting easily lend themselves to a virtual work environment.

By adopting a hybrid or remote work model, insurers can reap several benefits, including improved employee satisfaction, increased engagement, and higher productivity. With the right tools, remote employees can stay connected and remain effective. By offering remote and hybrid work opportunities, insurers can recruit new employees from a broader geographic area, attract top talent, and increase employee satisfaction. By supporting remote and hybrid work, insurers can also reduce many operational costs associated with physical office space.

To fully realize these benefits, insurers must invest in robust communication technology that ensures secure, compliant, and efficient remote work. Cloud-based UCaaS offers an ideal foundation for remote work, combining telephony, messaging, video meetings, and file sharing into a single, unified platform.

Increasing business agility with cloud communications

Agility is more than just a buzzword; it’s a critical competency that enables organizations to respond quickly to volatile market conditions and shifting customer expectations. Accenture defines agility as the ability to sense and respond to opportunities and disruptions effectively. This is particularly important in an industry where customer expectations are constantly evolving, and competition from innovative market entrants can sometimes be fierce.

Outdated systems and siloed processes represent barriers to agility. Cloud communications can help overcome these limitations by simplifying a company’s technology stack and enabling seamless communication and collaboration across geographical boundaries. UCaaS enables your team to seamlessly transition between various communication channels, with no loss in productivity, and without losing information along the way.

UCaaS that also includes Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) takes your business a step further, empowering your team to respond swiftly to customer issues, emerging market trends, and new opportunities. By facilitating organization-wide collaboration, these tools help maintain alignment and ensure that all teams are working towards common goals.

Enhancing security and compliance

For insurers, security and compliance remain a constant factor in technology decisions. The right UCaaS platform includes secure, fully compliant managed cloud services to ensure adherence to industry standards. The right cloud-based communications platform must address regulations such as GDPR, KYC/AML, NAIC, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). Regular updates and security checks are essential to maintaining a secure and compliant environment, and managed cloud services provide these critical capabilities.

Supercharging productivity

For insurance leaders striving to do more with less, all-in-one cloud-based communications offer truly compelling ROI. AI-infused UCaaS handles repetitive, mundane tasks, and it delivers meaningful insights, automated workflows, and enables employees to focus on high-value activities.

Consider the simple fact that when employees must work with multiple, disjointed applications, they waste time switching back and forth, entering duplicate information, and following up with colleagues. When workers must toggle back and forth between multiple applications all day, they lose a few seconds of productivity each time. That adds up. According to a Harvard Business Review study, the average employee does this nearly 1,200 times a day, resulting in a loss of nearly four hours of productivity each week.

Cloud-based communication tools like video conferencing, instant messaging, and AI-driven conversation intelligence enhance productivity by enabling real-time collaboration and reducing the need for app switching.

Leveraging AI for innovation, agility, and efficiency

GenAI tools add even more value by automating routine tasks, such as note-taking, meeting summaries, and CRM integration, allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities.

AI is transforming the way insurers operate by enhancing productivity, improving decision-making, and fostering innovation. AI-infused UCaaS solutions offer a wide range of benefits, from automating claims processing to detecting fraud and creating customizable insurance products. By harnessing the power of AI, insurers can streamline operations, reduce costs, and deliver superior customer and employee experiences.

AI can:

• Rapidly assess incoming customer inquiries and automatically direct them to the most appropriate person for resolution. 
• Summarize meetings and update team members on any content they might have missed.
• Recognize patterns among a large volume of phone calls human observers might not have noticed, including fraudulent claims.
• Highlight upsell/cross-sell opportunities and help teams identify new product or service possibilities.

GenAI is changing the way we work, enhancing human productivity and effectiveness.  AI-infused UCaaS offers a fast track to reaping these benefits.

Driving innovation and accelerating time to market

Innovation is essential for insurers to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market. Cloud-based communication technology helps insurers accelerate time to market for new products and services by facilitating collaboration and streamlining workflows.

Consider how conventional collaboration processes work. One team holds a meeting, comes up with some ideas, then reaches out to colleagues in another department for input. Emails might sit unanswered for a day or two (or more), delaying the process. Or important action items fall through the cracks. The result is friction in your team’s communication processes.

AI-infused UCaaS, in contrast, supports collaborative note taking, and can even suggest follow-up action items. With automated integration to CRM, productivity apps, or other business applications, AI can even trigger workflows or update records automatically, speeding processes and saving time.

Improving operational efficiencies

In addition to enhancing productivity and fostering innovation, cloud communications can significantly improve operational efficiencies for insurers. This technology can streamline various processes, for example, from customer acquisition and onboarding to claims processing and account servicing. By integrating all communication channels into a single platform, insurers can reduce redundancies, eliminate inefficiencies, and improve customer and employee experiences.

UCaaS combined with contact center as a service (CCaaS) can simplify the customer onboarding process by allowing new policyholders to securely share documentation online and connect with live agents as needed. Similarly, a unified communications platform can streamline claims processing by enabling seamless communication and collaboration among underwriters, agents, claims adjusters, and customer support teams.

RingCentral: The ideal UCaaS solution for insurance

RingCentral is a trusted partner for numerous insurance firms that have chosen to streamline operations, accelerate innovation, and improve CX and EX. RingCentral helps insurers unlock digital transformation with a comprehensive suite of communication and collaboration tools, including telephony, team messaging, video meetings, texting, and business app integrations.

Our platform includes gold-standard security, trustworthy AI, and full industry compliance. Find out why some of today’s most innovative insurance firms have chosen RingCentral as a foundational element of their digital transformation journey. Download a free copy of our ebook, Optimizing insurance innovation and productivity through cloud communications.

Originally published Dec 05, 2024, updated Jan 09, 2025