AI taking over jobs is just a myth
Employment issues plague companies across the industry, impacting all parties from insurance carriers to third-party administrators to restoration contractors.
Workforce challenges have been a particular issue since The Great Resignation, a period when “quit rates” reached a 20-year high and almost 50 million people left their jobs over a two-year period. The exodus was concentrated among people who sought more fulfillment, better pay, more opportunities for advancement, and greater flexibility.
Although The Great Resignation is officially over, the war for talent still continues.
Companies continue to vie for competent, high-performing employees who they can retain. Retention is a key part of a successful recruitment formula because job turnover is a major burden for employers. It takes time, effort, and money to find and hire job candidates. It’s also expensive to train and re-train employees.
The Insurance Industry Talent Crisis
Companies must look outside the box when hiring and retaining employees across the property insurance and restoration industries. This is especially critical for companies — especially Insurtech companies — working to attract younger employees.
In 2021, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported that over the next 15 years, 50% of the current insurance industry’s workforce will retire. The same report stated that less than 25% of the industry is under the age of 35.
Learn More About AI In Property Insurance
Leveraging automation and artificial intelligence can help organizations overcome employment roadblocks and hire younger employees who have more staying power. This technology also enables companies to provide employees with the professional experiences that they are looking for in today’s work environment, which leads to greater hiring and retention rates.
What Is AI Technology and How Does it Work With Automation?
Before we delve into the ways these technologies can help companies overcome workforce challenges, let’s define automation and AI.
Both automation and AI are components of Insurtech.
Automation technologies can repeatedly complete tasks or carry out processes without manual intervention. Robotics, software, and AI can all be automation technologies. They complete predictable, repetitive, routine tasks that humans must otherwise spend significant time addressing.
AI-driven technologies can perform automation, but they go further. AI is advanced technology with the inherent ability of a machine, computer, or software platform to mimic human logic and thought patterns to take actions.
“The AI revolution is impacting the property and casualty insurance industry in a major way,” explained CoreLogic Chief Innovation Leader for Insurance Solutions Raj Goswami.
AI is beneficial to the insurance industry because it can:
- Automate and optimize workflows to eliminate manual, administrative tasks
- Enable insurers to do more work virtually
- Analyze large quantities of data and produce meaningful insights so that employees don’t have to parse massive amounts of information themselves
“Major innovations and advancements in vision technology, generative AI, and the explosion of data are enabling us to create game-changing models with various use cases like wildfire risk management, catastrophe management, and property intelligence,” said Goswami. “Although we need to be mindful of data compliance and ethical use of AI, the possibilities are mind boggling.”
Here is what insurance and restoration companies can accomplish by incorporating automation and AI technologies into processes and workflows:
- Make work more meaningful for employees
Workplace burnout is trending across the property insurance ecosphere. With the ongoing labor shortages, professionals in the property insurance and restoration industries are overworked and it’s taking an emotional toll. Couple this with more severe natural disasters, and these professionals are facing a reality where they must do more with less.
Insurance professionals must tackle the technical components of their job at the same time as tapping into their emotional intelligence. When these insurance professionals are spread too thin, it becomes difficult to deliver the personal touches that people expect when their largest assets — their properties —are on the line.
People want to find purpose in their jobs, which in this industry they can only do when they are able to satisfy the customers on the other side of a claim.
Automation and AI technologies allow claims and restoration professionals to focus on people. They remove the manual, repetitive tasks that stand in the way of providing personalized customer experiences. This makes work more meaningful for insurance and restoration professionals who, in turn, will be less likely to experience burnout.
- Allow for more job flexibility
Since the global pandemic, a growing number of professionals want the flexibility to work remotely. Automation and AI tools provide the solution.
These technologies enable professionals to do more work at their desks rather than being onsite for every component of their jobs. This allows employers to give their workforces the opportunity to work more often from home.
For instance, CoreLogic’s AI Virtual Survey allows underwriters to conduct home inspections remotely. This solution scans and analyzes the exterior and interior images of properties to assess all the condition hazards, insurance-to-value (ITV) ratios, and geospatial risks that underwriters need to make better policy decisions.
AI technologies also determine repair costs by assessing property damage photos, thereby limiting the amount of time adjusters spend onsite.
With AI’s ability to analyze aerial and other imagery, insurance professionals can reduce time spent onsite. This affords them more flexibility and gives them the opportunity to work from home when performing certain tasks.
- Get more done with less
Sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got. If your workforce is understaffed, then AI and automation technologies can help you make up for your deficits in manpower.
50%
Current industry workforce set to retire by 2036
By automating certain administrative tasks like distributing policy information to customers and auto-populating fields to reduce the need for data entry, these technologies allow your existing workforce to solve problems with fewer resources.
With AI analyzing datasets and producing insights, professionals can also reach better decisions far more quickly, too.
With all their functionalities, AI and automation technologies can alleviate the pressure to hire so that your company can take the right amount of time to find the right people (and then retain them).
- Set your employees up for success
When employees have workplace burnout, it is in part because they have feelings of inefficacy. Employers can ameliorate this by eliminating roadblocks for employees that prevent them from successfully doing their jobs.
Technologies that provide guided, automated workflows can help professionals in the field cross all their ‘t’s and dot all their ‘i’s to avoid oversights and inaccuracies with estimates and other job documentation.
Consistently meeting all requirements and achieving accuracy enables professionals to feel effective and be a part of the company’s overall profitability and success. By facilitating the success of their workforce, companies can reduce burnout and retain their best employees.
Automation and AI: Tools for Employee Attraction and Retention
As workforce challenges continue to loom across the property insurance ecosphere, it is important to embrace automation and AI.
By incorporating automation and AI into business processes, property insurance and restoration companies become more desirable places to work. These companies can also develop a reputation for being innovative, which can help attract qualified potential employees. After all, employee referrals are often the best candidate leads.
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