The rise of the OEM “Virtual Referral” to certified auto body shops shops might finally be near, according to data presented earlier this month by Collision Advice CEO Mike Anderson. This is a potential threat as well as an opportunity for insurers. Will the OEM, the auto manufacturer or the insurer become the ecosystem integrator? There is a long and short term goal for innovative insurers.
Longer-term- Digital integration of the Claims Ecosystem
- Claims assessors
- Roadside assistance service providers
- Rental-car companies
- Direct repair-shop network
- Third-party & OEM repair shops
- Law Firms
- Police & Courts
- Weather-information Providers
- Insurtech claims solution providers
- IoT solution providers & aggregators
- AI Solution Provisders
- Digital Claims Platform Solutions
Shorter-term & First Step to integrating the whole ecosystem
A first step is to ensure that today's claimants can enjoy a speedy and fully repaired return of their vehicle- at an optimal cost to the insurer and supply chain. Given the amount of wasted time and resources that customers, insurers and body shops suffer this is a significant potential advance to increase customer satisfaction, reduce costs and speed up accurate reserving.
One barrier is consumer readiness to pay for telematics services and the other is interoperability of different auto manufacturers systems. Yet another is the fact that insurer's and manufacturer's dealers and body shops are in a competing ecosystems with different motivations and core systems.
Insurers are working with service providers like Audatex , Tractable and Xtract to digitally transform vehicle repair services.
When combined in digital claims platforms the insurance industry has one other answer to the challenge of increasing customer UX & satisfaction, cutting costs and improving ratios.
It has the opportunity to integrate the claims ecosystem and in that way gain a key competitive advantage and leadership position. Once you start the journey do not be swayed by the claims of many technology providers to enable an "easy" way to the end goal.
Full integration will, for example, require the deployment of AI and hardly any digital transformation article excludes AI as an essential "must have". But most insurers are not remotely prepared to adopt AI across a whole ecosystem. The basic data management and data skills/resources are just not there. Too much data in too many unconnected silos. Too much unstructured data inaccessible and therefore hidden for AI tools. This is why almost every digital transformation project ends up taking longer and costing more than the C-Suite and Claims Directors expect.
Read more of this in "Why companies end up spending more on digital technologies than anticipated".
Best to make a big impact this year and next and adopt the technologies that still let you add AI and other components as and when you are ready. Again that requires a digital claims platform that supports today's and tomorrow's goals.
OEMs want to protect their brands, Anderson said. He cited FCA collision marketing manager Erica Schaefer’s data- 60 percent of customers who have to revisit their body shop with a comeback will sell or trade the car in a year — and 63 percent will switch brands. IHS Markit predicted that 87 percent of all new U.S. vehicles will have telematics by 2022. But there’s a bit of a disconnect here. Only 32 percent of the combined respondents in five countries called telematics something they’d be willing to pay for; only 29 percent willing to pay for vehicle Wi-Fi. Of course, that 32 percent is relative. If you’re a body shop that failed to secure a spot on any OEM repair networks, having a third of your customers referred elsewhere by their own cars would be a pretty big deal.
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