The insurance industry handles a lot of complex tasks on a daily basis; as such, they rely on insurance software development to deliver the custom software solutions necessary to manage ever-shifting consumer demands and compliance requirements. Therefore, if your business operates within the insurance industry, you must use the latest technology to improve your insurance processes.
With the right combination of web development and custom software development, your insurance company can improve daily operations and save time and money. Insurance software solutions come in many shapes and sizes. Some insurance software will be a good fit for your business, and others might not be.
This post will explain what insurance software is in greater detail. We will also explore the different types of insurance software solutions currently being used by insurance companies so you can see what is possible and what software solutions might be right for your insurance business.
Understanding Insurance Software Development: What Is Insurance Software?
Insurance software is a term that covers a wide variety of different software solutions. In basic terms, insurance software assists insurance companies with their daily operations and consumers with their insurance policies. The insurance industry has several key users, including agents, brokers, carriers, companies, and consumers. Insurance software solutions need to serve all of these key users in some way.
Generally, there are two distinct sides of insurance software, the administrative side and the client-side. Clients should be able to complete several important tasks, such as applying for an insurance policy, making payments on their policy, checking the status of their policy and eligibility, completing paperwork, and getting help from their insurance representative.
On the administrative side, users should be able to manage their teams, underwrite policies, issue insurance policies, comply with local and federal regulations, track and adjust claims, update insurance policy information, and more. But, again, depending on how your business operates within the insurance industry, some features will be more valuable to your insurance company than others.
It is important to discuss your business objectives and goals with your project management team to ensure that your custom insurance software development project focuses on the insurance processes and software solutions that are important to your business.
The Different Types of Insurance Software
The insurance industry is unique in that software solutions must cater to several different types of users. For example, insurance agents have different needs from their insurance software than insurance brokers. Likewise, consumers require their own set of features, and insurance companies must offer their clients digital solutions to manage their policies because the competition will. Inconvenience will drive clients away from your business almost as fast as bad service.
There are several common types of insurance software to keep in mind during ideation, including:
- Document management
- Underwriting
- Policy management
- Claims management
- Customer Relationship Management
Document Management
No matter what part of the insurance industry you work in, paperwork is a large part of daily business operations. Document management insurance software plays a vital role in safely storing, organizing, and accessing important insurance documentation. However, there are real-world consequences if insurance documents are lost or otherwise compromised.
Poor documentation practices can seriously damage your business in that it makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to process claims accurately. Insurance companies that can’t process claims accurately and in a timely fashion drive customers away. Remember, your customers don’t have weeks and months to wait for your business to process their claims.
Document management software features help insurance providers provide better customer service and keep better internal records.
Underwriting
The insurance industry requires accurate underwriting to accurately assess risk. However, underwriting can be a time-consuming process too. As a result, insurance companies have to walk a fine line between underwriting efficiency and accuracy. Underwriting software can help insurance businesses manage this process and write rules for automation so that valuable time is also saved and put towards other tasks.
Underwriting insurance software solutions can be combined with Machine Learning algorithms to further automate the underwriting process. Insurance underwriters initially train the algorithm on the specifics of the company underwriting policy. Then, as the Machine Learning algorithm is exposed to more data, it learns and can automate more of the underwriting process.
Automation in the underwriting process also helps reduce the number of human errors that are made. Can your insurance company afford to lose money due to human error during underwriting? By reducing manual effort, your company ensures that fewer errors are made.
Policy Management
Insurance policies are the products that insurance companies sell to consumers and business customers. All businesses need an effective way to manage their products. In the insurance industry, policy management software helps providers create and administer insurance policies.
Policy management software helps insurers provide better, more timely customer service. Robust policy management software should also include client-side features that allow users to view their policies, make payments, etc. Custom insurance software solutions can be built to meet all of your policy management needs on the administrative and client-side of operations.
Claims Management
The workflow for processing insurance claims can be time-consuming. In addition, if there is a natural disaster like a flood or a hurricane, bottlenecks in the claims processing workflow can occur and lead to angry, dissatisfied customers. Claims management insurance software helps expedite the claims process.
Insurance claim management software can be utilized to automatically create claims documents, manage payments to policyholders, integrate the policy management team, and even help adjusters check fraudulent claims. Streamlining the claims process leads to more satisfied customers, and claim management software helps protect the company from fraud and other financial losses due to overpayments.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management software is used in many different industries, but the insurance industry has widely adopted CRM software to streamline insurance processes. Managing customer relationships is the most important reason insurance companies use this software. However, CRM software can also be used to unify entire organizations.
Typical insurance companies employ a lot of different teams and professionals. CRM software can be used to connect all your agents, call center employees, field sales representatives, and distribution channels in a single portal.
Keeping your company on the same page helps your team provide better service to your customers and increase productivity.
Final Thoughts
Insurance companies have a lot of unique needs. We have covered many of the different insurance software solutions available on the market. The value of custom insurance software development is that your insurance business can create a tool that combines some or all of the common features found in various insurance software solutions.
If you’re interested in creating custom insurance software for your business, reach out to an app development partner. A partner can help you create custom software solutions that meet the unique needs of your business. Custom insurance software development could fundamentally change the way you do business today.
