How digitalisation is helping insurance firms manage workloads

The use of digitised platforms is helping insurance firms and managers manage their workloads as they are able to get “faster access” to different types of documents.

That was according to Tim Hood, vice president of EMEA and APAC at Hyland, who told Insurance Times that the industry’s transition to digitial platforms was accelerated by the need to work in a more agile and distributed fashion following the pandemic.

It came after figures released by OC Tanner in March revealed that 46% of insurance managers said that their responsibilities had increased since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020.

The firm collected and analysed the perspectives of over 36,000 employees, leaders, HR practitioners and business executives from 20 countries around the world, including 606 from the insurance sector.

Hood said digital platforms were helping insurers manage their workload in a number of ways and had enabled managers to get “faster access to information, documentation and content”.

“What we’re finding is the need to make sure that when people are looking for the information, documents, data and directions of where the trends are, they need to have that information as quickly as possible, but also in a format that’s most applicable for them.

“[Insurance managers] want to focus on the outcome they’re looking for rather than searching for a particular document or particular information or a particular piece of data.”

Ways of working

Hood also stressed that firms having a central digital platform was important due to more people working from home due to the pandemic.

A survey of 260 insurance professionals working in the London market found that 86% of the sector were now attending the office three times a week or less.

The survey, which was published by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) New Generation group earlier this year (2 June 2023), also found less than 5% now attend the office five days per week. 

In comparison, pre-pandemic findings show that 73% of staff attended the office five days a week, with another 17% attending four times. 

Hood said: ”People were looking at having to work differently [due to the pandemic].

“Having that digitised platform centrally was key to enabling people to continue to do their roles and [create the] work from anywhere scenario.”