Taking Action in a Dynamically Changing Environment
The current landscape has pushed every one of us to adapt and change extremely fast, both personally and professionally. Remember when working from home was considered a less than productive option by many employers? Telemedicine? We’ve seen the virtual potential for years; however, the pandemic has forced us to incorporate new mediums into routine medical care. Health insurance is no different. Now, more than ever, traditional approaches to health insurance underwriting and “that’s how we’ve always done it” ways of thinking are being challenged and changed. It is exactly why I came to Verikai. Our applied data platform, which is the only technology of its kind in insurance, leverages over 4,000 behavioral attributes across a database of 250+ million individuals to predict risk on an individual and group level.
Never has the importance of underwriting excellence come under a microscope more than current times, given the pandemic. According to IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, there were 80,000 missed diagnoses of cancer between March and June. With deferred utilization leading to pent-up demand for care – elective care, non-essential care, and even components of chronic care have been put on-hold until next year. Cancer and other important medical screens haven’t taken place as often as usual. Now is the time to start thinking about the impact the pandemic in 2020 could have on your block of business in 2021 and 2022.
Forward thinking companies are looking for ways to separate themselves from the competition and gain an advantage. While there are a number of levers a carrier can pull, fundamentally a strong business must understand the risks being insured at a granular level, which makes Verikai’s Capture for Health product so relevant to MGUs and carriers. By giving underwriters the ability to obtain deep insight into individuals’ true health risks and arming them with insight into how individuals behave, we have created an intuitive aid to help them accurately predict health risk and rate appropriately.
Given that I’ve spent the past 14 years in insurance, I have witnessed the power and results that predictive analytics has helped produce firsthand. At my last employer, Verisk Analytics, we worked with many P&C carriers to validate and implement models to advance underwriting and pricing capabilities that ultimately achieved meaningful profitability improvement. Leveraging a data driven approach helped early adopters jump well ahead of their competitors. Given their success using predictive tools, I believe health insurance underwriting is at a tipping point for rapid change and adoption of new technology.
Are you ready to differentiate your underwriting capabilities and gain a competitive advantage? Email sales@verikai.com to learn more and see our product in action.