Simplicity and convenience. Bold claims for Digital Claims.
In our previous post, we summarized the benefits to insurers and policyholders yielded by telematics (particularly our Internet of Things Analyzer — msg.IoTA) and usage-based insurance (UBI). In this post, we introduce the ways in which telematics can make a bad situation — an auto claim — better by making it simpler and more convenient to report, monitor, and resolve the claim.
Ouch!
It’s one of everyone’s worst nightmares. You’re driving in your car, listening to music while keeping your eyes on the road. It’s a gorgeous day. And you’re on your way to meet a friend for a long-awaited outing. You see the traffic light ahead is red. You gently apply your brakes, come to a gentle stop, and … WHAM! The car behind you slams into yours. Your rear bumper is smashed, the trunk looks like an accordion, and the rear quarter panels look like wrinkled aluminum foil. Ugh!
You mentally start running through the list of things you have to do now: Figure out your precise location. Call the police. Call the insurance company. Ask the insurance company for the names of authorized towing services and body shops. Ask the insurance company if your policy covers a rental car while yours is in the shop. Call an authorized towing service. Take pictures. Worry about how long you’ll be without your car. Then it dawns on you: You’re so preoccupied with trying to manage all that, you haven’t even checked to see if the driver of the other car is okay!
Is That It?
Nope. The fun has just begun: After all that, you have to go to the body shop. Fill out more forms than you’ve ever seen before. Send the pictures to the insurance company. Double-check to make sure the insurance company got them. Then wait. Wait. And wait some more.
When the work on your car is done, you have to pay the body shop, pay the towing service, and pay the rental-car company. Then you get to fill out even more forms, requesting reimbursement from the insurance company. After all that, you get to wait even longer for the insurance company to pay the claim.
You spontaneously exclaim to no one, “Isn’t there a better way?!”
As it turns out, yes.
It’s the Future, Right Now
You have this fantastic new insurance that includes a digital claims process. You pull out your mobile phone and open the app. There’s a detailed picture of your car’s make and model. You press some buttons on the phone to indicate where the car is damaged. When you hit send your GPS coordinates accompany your report to the insurance company. In a few minutes, the insurance company knows what the repair will cost along with the value of your vehicle, which in turn computes if your car is a total loss or if it makes sense to fix it.
The insurance company also contacts a towing service that takes your car to the right body shop and takes you to the car-rental agency if your policy contains that coverage. When the work on your car is finished, the insurance company pays the towing service and the body shop. No forms. No waiting. You wonder to yourself, “Could the process really be this easy?” You even want to call the insurance company and thank them for their investment in the technology.
But instead, you pull out your phone, call a friend, and say, "The future of insurance is here."
Welcome to the future.
