Your money, your health: Understanding health insurance

Increased risks are impacting insurance profitability. Earlier this year, AM Best indicated an increase in losses and expenses were responsible for the P&C sector’s $4.1 billion net underwriting loss in 2021 and a weakened combined ratio of 99.6%[i] . AM Best estimated that the 2021 catastrophe losses accounted for 7.7 points on the combined ratio. Already in 2022, the Marshall Fire in Colorado is expected to reach $1 billion in losses, with nearly 1,000 homes destroyed and hundreds more requiring damage repair. Tornadoes in Kentucky and other locations devastated both homeowners and businesses. Rising construction costs, strained supply chains, and lack of construction workers are driving up the cost of rebuilding, putting many insureds at risk of not having enough insurance coverage and insurers at risk of not knowing their overall portfolio of risk.

Insurance as we have known it for the past few decades is facing permanent changes: Digital companies like Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Apple and others are resetting the bar for customer engagement. New digitally-driven customer behaviors and expectations are creating new risks. And platform-based business models and digital technology are shifting and blurring traditional industry boundaries. The convergence of these changes is driving a rapid shift in the industry from Insurance 1.0 to Digital Insurance 2.0.

Insurance companies have an opportunity to leapfrog generations of technology advancements and are driving end to end transformation impacting customer experience through back-end processes such as claims-processing, underwriting and providing policy quotes. Today, more and more businesses have turned to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and a Digital Workforce to help streamline their processes in order to remain competitive while being able to delight their customers thanks to fast turnaround times and accurate information.

When it comes to reducing Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Asides (WCMSAs), the best defense is a good offense! Verisk’s suite of WCMSA services and cost-mitigation strategies provides workers’ compensation insurers with the help that they need to get costs under control and claims settled.