Insurtech Cover Genius says it has completed a car rental insurance claim entirely using technology, including optical character recognition. 

OCR was used to read an uploaded damage report and agreement with the rental company to finish the claim, which went to a staff member for final approval. 

Cover Genius CEO Angus McDonald told insuranceNEWS.com.au the breakthrough follows significant investment in technology and an in-house claims arm.

“We did our first fully automated claim four weeks ago – that’s something we’re pretty excited about,” he said.

“We’re using it as a way of basically getting to, ‘Hey, this one’s ready to be approved.’ I think it means we can do a lot of our claims [automatically]. We’re excited about where that gets us.”

Mr McDonald says about 80% of claims are “pretty often the same sort of things”, and if the handling can be sped up, customers are not out of pocket for long.

The embedded insurance heavyweight was founded in Sydney and turns 10 this month.

It brought claims handling in house to ensure “the best possible customer experience, differentiating ourselves from competitors and industry norms”, Mr McDonald says. 

Its merchant and distribution partners are “very protective of their consumers’ experiences", and investigate satisfaction ratings, whether claims are getting approved and resolution times under set service level agreement terms.

“Claims is a labour-intensive area and it’s something we really invest in, as there is a real business reason – it helps us to get more distribution partners for our embedded programs.

“We have a different approach in that we look at it from the distribution partner [perspective], rather than the insurance product. It’s been a big investment.”

He says Cover Genius’ approach is “easier to justify” than for a legacy insurer managing claims on a cost-per-insurance-product basis.

From Insurance News magazine: Our tech seminar hears how brokers and bots can work together