Category: News

We’re certified!

Sprout.ai is now proudly ISO 27001 certified for the development, support, and delivery of global ‘SAAS’ solutions that enable automated insurance claim handling. You can download our certificate here and will see the badge displayed across our website.

ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security management. It sets up a framework for managing sensitive information, ensuring that it is protected from unauthorised access, disclosure, and destruction. 

As an insurtech company, we deal with plenty of sensitive customer and partner data, as well as the data of our employees. We hope this certification, which demonstrates just how seriously we take information security and the rigour with which we protect sensitive data, will provide an extra layer of assurance to our partners. 

The standard covers our entire information security management process, including risk assessment, security controls, incident management, and compliance. 

We selected the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), a national accreditation body, to review and verify our information security management systems. The leading accreditation body for ISO 27001 in the UK, UKAS is recognized by the UK government and is a member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the global organisation for accreditation bodies.

UKAS will continue to audit us to ensure we remain SO27001 compliant as we grow.

CEO Roi Amir said: “We are proud to announce that we have achieved the ISO 27001 certification. Sprout.ai has always treated information security seriously and by achieving this certification, our customers, employees and partners can have confidence that we are taking the necessary measures to protect their data and  maintain high levels of security.”

To learn more about how Sprout.ai can help you process claims in real time, book a call with one of our claims experts

Sprout.ai’s ongoing partnership with Zurich won both Best Use of Technology by a Technology Supplier for Customer Experience and Technology Partner of the Year at the Insurance Times Tech and Innovation Awards 2022.

Insurance Times acknowledged the significant impact our groundbreaking AI and data-led product have on customers’ experience of the claims process. Our software’s ability to uncover data-driven insights, reduce costs, and rapidly deliver accurate decisions is helping insurers create an exceptional claims experience. 

The awards recognised how game changing it is for insurers using Sprout.ai to be able to make a decision on a customers’ claims in near real-time, rather than the industry average of 30 days. Sprout.ai is a clear path to high customer retention and greater efficiency for insurers.

This was rewarding to hear. Improving customer experience during the stressful time of making an insurance claim is the foundation of what we work towards.

“We’re proud to have won these two prestigious awards which underline the extent to which our world class AI and data-led software is changing the insurance claims process for the better,” said our CEO, Roi Amir. 

“When insurers use Sprout.ai, they are empowered to deliver a differentiated claim experience for their customers. We work in close partnership with insurance companies, enabling them to pass on to their customers the remarkable benefits of the cutting edge technology our team has built. 

“Just as our partnerships with some of the world’s leading insurers demonstrate, these awards confirm that Sprout.ai is a trailblazer in the insurance technology space. When insurers adopt our end-to-end claims automation solution, they gain a real competitive advantage.

“I’d like to thank the Zurich UK team for partnering with us and the Sprout.ai team for their amazing work.”

We were honoured to win these awards alongside our industry peers and friends who are also making remarkable innovations in this space. They share our goal of enhancing the insurance claims process for everyone involved. You can read more about the companies and technology they’re building on the Insurance Times website.

About Sprout.ai

Sprout.ai is an end-to-end claims automation technology solution for the insurance industry. Sprout.ai works in partnership with major insurers, including Zurich UK and AdvanceCare, part of the Generali Group, to build groundbreaking AI and data-led products to automate the claims process for customers. 

Sprout.ai’s vision is to provide a frictionless claims experience to everyone in the world. The average time it takes for insurers to process claims is around 30 days. At a time when you’re emotionally and financially vulnerable, this is often frustrating and stressful. Sprout.ai enables insurers to make a decision on a customers’ claim, in near real-time. Sprout’s technology delivers fast and accurate decisions and an exceptional claims experience, driving high customer retention with improved efficiency. 

Sprout.ai has raised $12.8 million to date from top tier investors Octopus Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners and Playfair Capital.

To learn more about Sprout.ai, book a call with one of the team.

Interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence in the insurance sector? This post on how AI can benefit insurers is a great place to start.

Sprout.ai is delighted to announce the arrival of Roi Amir, who has joined the company as CEO. Niels Thone steps down from the position and will continue as part of the senior leadership team in the role of Chief Growth Officer.

Roi arrives from insurtech company Tractable. There, as VP of Engineering, he gained substantial experience of the insurtech business and of the many challenges and inefficiencies that are inherent in the insurance sector. Roi played a crucial role in scaling both revenue and customer base during a key period of growth such that the business achieved rare unicorn status, meaning it was valued in excess of $1 billion, in June 2021.

Rapid growth

Roi arrives at a vital moment for Sprout.ai, as the company looks to continue the dramatic growth of the past couple of years. Over the past 12 months alone, the company has raised Series A funding, the team has tripled in size and the customer list has swelled to include several Tier 1 insurance businesses.

Co-founder Niels Thone has no doubt Roi is the ideal man to guide Sprout.ai through the next growth stage and to the ultimate goal of becoming the global leader in claims automation.

He said: “We can see the road ahead on this fast growth journey and the milestones we need to hit to achieve this. Roi brings the experience we need to get there, including the best routes to take and potential mistakes to avoid. Execution is key to achieving our ambitious goals, and having Roi on board will be instrumental in helping us to get there.”

A world class team

Roi said he was “humbled and excited” to lead Sprout.ai at this crucial time. He paid tribute to Niels and the rest of the team as he took up his new role and commented that he is looking forward to working with Niels and with Niclas Stoltenberg in their positions of CGO and CTO respectively. Roi described the entire team as “world class” and said they have built “a great company with mind-blowing technology.”

He added that Sprout.ai’s business proposition is strong and he is impressed by the close working partnerships that have been forged between Sprout.ai and its customers. Roi noted that there is clearly significant demand in the insurance market for what it has to offer. He said he has already seen in his previous role that with the right offering, the Insurtech sector offers businesses incredibly exciting growth possibilities. He observed that: “Sprout’s technology has huge potential to fundamentally change the insurance industry.”

The Path Ahead

The long-term aim is clear. Sprout.ai’s technology makes the insurance claims process faster and more efficient for people at a time when they are in the greatest need for support. The company has a vision to help more than 100 million people with their insurance claims by 2030.

It’s hard to believe that 12 months have gone by since our last end-of-year review. 2021 has certainly been a memorable one at Sprout.ai, and while we’ve all been facing continuing challenges in the wider world, we’re delighted to say the business has gone from strength to strength. The team has grown in size by 400 percent and we’re honoured to have been nominated for several awards.

12 months ago, the festive celebrations were, by necessity, a somewhat muted affair. It was great to make up for it to a certain extent this year, when several members of the team were able to meet up in person for our Christmas party to celebrate all that we’ve achieved – and to hand out a few extra awards of our own!

Our Growing Team

Before we get on to that, there are some new team members to introduce since our last update earlier this year.

• Aris Koliopoulos is our new Head of Engineering. He’s spent the past five years building DriveTribe by Clarkson, Hammond and May from the ground up. We’re certain that his considerable experience will bring massive benefits to the insurance sector.

• Justin Galerne joined in October as a Senior Data Scientist. Before coming to Sprout.ai, he spent three years developing his skills at respected French insurtech Shift Technologies.

• Jeremie Charlet will already be familiar to many, having worked with us as a contractor for the past year. He became an official member of the team in November, also as a Senior Data Scientist. Jeremie has worked for the UK government and several corporates and startups in various data science roles.

• Soi Luong joined in December as Lead Frontend Engineer, and like Aris, he comes direct from DriveTribe by Clarkson, Hammond and May, where he was building frontend apps.

• Last but not least, Thanh Nhan Nguyen is the latest addition to our team of Data Scientists. Thanh joins us from Cinnamon AI in Hanoi, where he enjoyed success as a Machine Learning Engineer.

Please join us in welcoming all our new team members aboard! We will hear more about how they are settling in in a future update.

Industry awards

We always say that success brings its own rewards, but it’s nevertheless special to have our achievements recognised by our industry peers. We’ll try not to blush too much in telling you this has happened several times over the past few months.

Most recently, Sprout.ai was announced as a finalist at this year’s Insurance Times awards for Excellence in Technology – Claims. It’s a great piece of news on which to end the year, and is a testament to everyone’s dedication over the past 12 months.

We’re also pleased to report that Sprout.ai won Claims Collaboration of the Year at the Insurance Post Claims & Fraud Awards for our work with Zurich, and we were finalists for several other awards, including the Tech and Innovation awards, Insurance Business Rising Stars and COVER awards.

We must also mention the TechRound 100. This is the flagship event of the year, highlighting the hard work and success of UK startups, businesses and entrepreneurs. With more than 3,000 applications this year, we are extremely proud to announce that we’ve achieved a top 10 position!

Finally, we’re deeply honoured to be recognised as one of the top 18 insurtech startups to watch by some of the most respected VCs in an article published by Sifted. We couldn’t be more proud.

Special awards for special people

Of course, none of this would be possible without such an amazing team. But a fact that often goes unnoticed is that their skills and talents go way beyond insurtech and data science. Our recent Christmas party was the perfect opportunity to recognise those unique qualities with a few awards of our own at the inaugural Sprouties ceremony.

There were 15 prestigious awards presented, including Stand Up Comedian Award (Niclas Stoltenberg), Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (Aris Koliopoulos) and Most Likely to Run for Prime Minister Award (who else but Niels Thone). Congratulations to all our worthy winners!

It only remains for us to wish you all a happy and peaceful holiday season with your loved ones. Here’s to still greater success and growth in 2022!

The first half of 2021 has gone by in a flash, in what have been an exciting and successful six months at Sprout.ai. Series A funding is complete, we have delivered successful solutions to some of the biggest names in insurance, and the team continues to expand to meet ever-growing demand. We are also proud to have been shortlisted for some of the top industry awards. Here’s a brief update on the key events of 2021 so far, and on what’s to come in the second half of the year.

Customers

Sprout.ai works alongside many of the top insurance businesses in the world, and our software solutions are making a real difference, not only to our clients but also to the thousands of customers they serve. The overwhelming success of the Automated Policy Checking AI solution trialled at Zurich has been a particular high point, and gives them the ability to settle claims within 24 hours.

It’s a tangible result that resonates with anyone. After all, every single one of us has to make an insurance claim from time to time, and it’s usually as a result of some sort of stressful incident. Getting it all out of the way faster can only be good news.

We have also delivered a successful health solution to a top tier global insurer in South America. This demonstrates that our OCR solution is as effective in the field as it was in trials. After all, it’s one thing seeing it work under test conditions, but this proved efficient in reading and detecting text in Spanish across several different types of documents that are specific to Chile’s health sector. If it can read a doctor’s handwriting, we can safely say we’ve created something special!

Funding

The Series A funding round is now complete, and it raised £8 million. The funds will prove invaluable in allowing Sprout.ai to continue to grow, recruiting the very best data scientists to become part of the team. It also means we can invest in the necessary infrastructure to deliver bigger and better solutions to the insurance industry, and thereby to millions of people.

Team

Sprout.ai has certainly changed a great deal since the rebranding last April, and we are now a much larger family! Just in the last three months, we have welcomed six new joiners on board, so let’s hear briefly from some of them. We promise, no coercion or mystery bonuses were used to influence their feedback!

Paige Smith, Executive Assistant to the CEO: In the few months that I have been here, it’s been hard not to get excited about what we are building. Creating software that has a meaningful impact on people’s lives is what joins the team together, giving us a shared mission that is very clear. The enthusiasm from the leadership team is contagious, and I feel very much a part of a team that has huge growth plans and a very exciting future ahead.

Data Scientist Vassily Baranov: I joined Sprout.ai to be part of strong team in a rapidly growing company where I could grow personally. After these first few months, everything has far exceeded my expectations. The startup atmosphere is awesome, the team level is outstanding and the tasks are challenging. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next on this exciting journey.

Data Scientist Thanh Hau: Joining Sprout.ai has been a great opportunity. We can apply the most advanced AI technologies to real-world problems and by communicating directly with insurance companies, we have the opportunity to better understand the challenges they are facing and to come up with the best solutions together.

Data Scientist Pedro Barnardo: Since joining Sprout.ai, just three months ago, I got a chance to see how AI can revolutionize the insurance industry and deliver real value to the end customer. It has been very exciting to work with all the great minds in Sprout.ai and I’m looking forward to seeing the team grow as we tackle new challenges.

Lead Data Engineer Joseph Francis: I have just finished my first month at Sprout.ai and I love how much the company has data at its core. The things that Sprout.ai does with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are like nothing I have seen in any other company. It’s really exciting to see the business problems that this technology can solve in the insurance industry.

Every area of the business is continuing to grow at Sprout.ai, including product, delivery, sales, tech, operations, and support functions. You can look here to browse the latest career opportunities or to submit your CV.

It’s not all work, work, work at Sprout.ai. Meeting up is still a challenge at the moment for obvious reasons, but we’ve been able to share some fantastic virtual team events. These included a magician who was almost as spellbinding as our OCR software, and a comedian joining to end our weeks on a high!

It’s also great that from June, the London-based team members have been able to reunite back in the office for a few days each week. Having the flexibility to work remotely is a great thing, and is part of modern working life – but it’s a comfort to know we can still fit into those work clothes when we have to!

Awards

Success brings its own rewards, and as we mentioned earlier, the results generated by our software can make life easier for all of us, and our families, at the most difficult times. But we’re only human, and of course it is special to be recognized by our industry peers.

Sprout.ai was a finalist for The Europas in the Hottest AI Insurtech category and is shortlisted for the Digital Insurance Innovation Award at The Business Insurance Awards with Zurich. We are also delighted to report that we were listed as number 12/66 in the TechRound SaaS awards.

We look forward to further growth and success in the second half of 2021 – and also to plenty more magic! Keep an eye on our news page for further updates.

Helping 100 million people by 2030. That’s our objective at Sprout.ai, and an £8 million injection through a Series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures will help us take the next steps towards making the vision shared by our CEO, Niels Thone, and the rest of the team into a reality. Other investors also participated in the round, including Amadeus Capital, Techstars and Playfair Capital, who provided the initial seed funding back in 2018.

Why Octopus Ventures?

London-based Octopus Ventures is one of the most active venture capital investors in Europe, and has a specific eye for businesses that use deep tech to make a positive difference to people’s lives. Sprout.ai’s leading position as an innovator in using AI technology to dramatically reduce insurance claim processing, and its ambitious vision to help 100 million people in the next nine years, clearly made us a perfect fit.

How will the money be used?

Niels Thone explained to Nick Santo, Fintech Investor at Octopus Ventures, that Sprout.ai is now entering a period of consolidation before pressing ahead with the next growth phase. The company works with four of the top ten insurance companies across three continents, including the largest insurer in the USA. The priority is to consolidate that position and build on those relationships to deliver bigger and better solutions to more people by delivering AI solutions to their insurers.

At the same time, Sprout.ai’s team will continue to grow in order to meet ever-growing customer demand. The company has a strong pipeline of new projects lined up to take the business into 2022 and beyond, so the important thing is to have the infrastructure in place to support and integrate with the growing number of insurance companies that are eager to get to work on new projects and partnerships.

The top talent

Sprout.ai is proud to say that eight of the top hundred data scientists in the world are already on the team. In part, that is because Sprout.ai is working at the cutting edge, so scientists get a unique opportunity to push the boundaries in research that makes a tangible difference to people’s lives. There is also the simple fact that talent attracts talent and great scientists want to work with one another.

The investment funds will support the further hiring of top talent into Sprout.ai’s product, technical, operations and delivery teams, as well as facilitating the growth of its enterprise sales and partner networks. Take a look here to see the latest career opportunities or to submit your CV.

Helping customers and supporting staff

Discussing Sprout.ai’s vision is one thing, but ultimately, the evidence of its success or failure can be seen only through the eyes of those who benefit from the technology. Will Paskins leads the Claims Digital Experience team at Zurich, and is in the perfect position to judge. He said that partnering with Sprout.ai provides customers with the “fast, clear and transparent” claims handling they have every right to expect, as well as supporting staff by “providing them with market-leading technology.”

The first half of 2020 has brought about unprecedented challenges to businesses across the sector. While Sprout.ai has been no exception, we are pleased to say we have continued to grow and even to expand our team. In fact, four new members have joined us in critical roles over recent weeks. Let’s meet them.

Niclas Stoltenberg – Head of Engineering

Niclas is already a familiar face at Sprout.ai, having worked with us on a contractor basis since last year. In May, he joined us officially as Head of Engineering. Niclas explained his decision to forsake the contractor lifestyle:

I decided to join the Sprout.ai team full time as I strongly believe that our team culture and drive will enable us to grow exponentially. I have worked with many companies offering deep learning services in a consultancy capacity and only one was close to having the same energy Sprout.ai has. That company went from 0-100 in Silicon Valley. I see the same, if not more, for Sprout.ai!

Niclas has a passion for competitive machine learning, mainly via the Kaggle network. This is a platform on which companies can present their problems/pain points to a group of highly skilled data scientists for them to solve.

At Sprout.ai, Niclas finds it interesting to map the insurance landscape using graph theory and deep learning. Our proprietary automatic policy check tool gives us the power to map exactly where in an insurance policy the customer’s claim is included in their coverage, and Niclas is excited at the prospect of further harnessing this technology in the future.

Steffen Issleib – Lead Data Scientist

Steffen joined us in April, and but says it seems much longer as he already feels like an established part of the family. He has a background in quantitative trading and modelling and holds a PhD in probability theory and reinforcement learning. Prior to joining Sprout.ai. Steffen developed machine learning and AI solutions for FTSE 100 corporations in the engineering and finance sectors.

Steffen relishes the challenge of identifying particular use cases that are naturally suited for AI and then tailoring state of the art machine learning models to improve or even transform a business.

What I loved about Sprout.ai that was obvious from the first interview is the unparalleled energy and drive that everyone at sprout brings on board. In large corporations the best ideas and concepts often wither in different layers of responsibilities and administrative structures. At Sprout.ai we can go from a proprietary research idea to a deployed implementation at rapid speed. The commitment and support from the whole team is the perfect environment to implement game changing new ideas.

Steffen says that he has been looking for this kind of working environment where he can share his ideas and see them come to fruition for a long time. He has also been searching for well-suited business applications for AI and in Sprout.ai he has found what he was looking for.

Fahad Syed – Data Scientist

Fahad graduated from UCL with a Masters in machine learning and has previously worked in the market research space one the UK’s top insurers. He finds the automation of previously time-consuming tasks in the analysis of insurance data both fascinating and rewarding.

Having seen first-hand how data science is being applied internally I am very excited to have now joined Sprout.ai and to be working on one of the biggest challenges in the insurance space. There a huge opportunity for us to not only improve efficiencies but also reduce uncertainty from processes with our state-of-the-art deep learning. We can have a positive impact on people at a particularly vulnerable moment in their life.

Fahad commented that the complexity of automating a claim presents a variety of problems to be solved, including reading text from an image and having a computer understand the nuances of the policy and the claim itself. He feels that the coming months will be extremely exciting and is looking forward to continuing the ongoing work on developing our natural language process (NLP) capabilities and our deep learning model for images and fraud detection.

Lizzie Chisholm – Operations Executive

Lizzie joined us in March, having graduated last year with an International Business degree from Loughborough University. In the months after graduation, she completed multiple stints in the technology space, both in the UK and in Shanghai. These inspired her to find a role that in which she could explore her interests in this field further.

I was looking specifically for a role within a start-up, desiring a high paced, exciting place to work. So far, Sprout.ai has proven to be exactly that. I am very excited about the coming months, as there is a fantastic opportunity for personal growth. At work I have been given the opportunity to grow at the same pace as Sprout.ai (which is super quick!).

In the three months since Lizzie joined, the team has almost doubled in size, and her role has already expanded into new areas. She is starting to develop into the project management area of the business by supporting client-facing projects and says she is super-excited about what is to come.

Exciting times ahead Niels Thone, CEO of Sprout.ai said:

It is really humbling to have these whip-smart and super driven people choosing to join our company. They really believe in our vision and work super hard to achieve the goals we set together. They will make up the next phase of growth and help define our path forward.

The advice for a CEO is always to hire people that are smarter than you – well I think we’re most definitely succeeding there!

Please join us in welcoming Niclas, Steffen, Fahad and Lizzie aboard. We wish them every success as they play their part in the exciting journey of growth and discovery that everyone at Sprout.ai is a part of.

As our second round of seed funding has drawn to a close, the time has come to formally announce our dramatic rebranding. In the three years since BlockClaim’s inception, change has been the only constant in the insurtech world. Over the past year, our emphasis has moved firmly towards contextual AI, and the name change from BlockClaim to Sprout.ai reflects our overriding goal of enriching insights through cultivating data seeds that our technology harvests from a variety of sources.

What are the data sources?

The name Sprout.ai is inspired by the concept of our contextual AI solutions diving deep into multiple rich data sources. From these, we extract seeds that, with careful cultivation, will sprout into new forms of enriched data. So what are those sources?

• OCR – Optical Character Recognition is the technology that allows us to convert images of handwritten or typed text into electronic machine text. During the process, our OCR algorithm identifies characters from the documents provided by the claimantand converts these into digital data that can be searched and interrogated.
• Insurer data sources – Not every piece of data originates with the claimant. Insurers also hold a wealth of internal data. Used correctly, this can provide valuable “big picture” insights relating to overall trends in the insurance landscape.
• Image – A picture paints a thousand words. Today, practically everyone has a smartphone to hand, so in a situation like an automotive accident, it is almost certain that at least one person on the scene will be able to take contemporaneous photographs. These can prove to be an incredibly rich and informative source of data.
• NLP – It could be argued that Natural Language Processing is the single most important innovation in our sector in recent years. It is an area that puts the “intelligence” into Artificial Intelligence as NLP is not just about an algorithm understanding human language. It also means it is able to contextualize and draw conclusions from it.

Enriched data

These, then are the sources of data seeds that Sprout.ai seeks to cultivate. What about the outputs after they have spent time being lovingly tended and watered in our virtual hothouses? There are two core deliverables, and these add value for carriers, underwriters and most of all, customers.

1. Rapid claims processing. Automation means that low value claims can be settled in a matter of minutes, while still carrying out the necessary anti-fraud checks. It delivers reduced costs for insurers and a faster service for customers.
2. Better fraud detection. The annual cost of insurance fraud is estimated to be around £2 billion in the UK and as much as $40 billion in the USA. These are costs that are ultimately borne by every policyholder. Better detection through contextual AI benefits everyone.

Keep visiting Sprout.ai’s new website and blog pages to stay abreast of the ongoing innovations in our contextual AI solutions and how they are helping bring positive developments across the insurance sector.

With the Christmas and New Year break just around the corner, it’s the perfect moment to take a look back over what has been a busy and exciting 2019 for the team at Blockclaim. We’ve developed the business with some exciting new partnerships and also had an opportunity to grow and develop the team. Let’s have a run through some of the highlights.

Blockclaim at the MetLife Accelerator

Back in August, members of the team flew out to North Carolina to participate in the MetLife Accelerator. Created and run by accelerator startup Techstars, this is one of the most important events in the insuretech sector. We were proud to be one of nine companies invited to participate out of thousands of applicants.

The team had the opportunity to spend time with industry-leading mentors. These included serial entrepreneurs and start up gurus with an incredible wealth of experience. The lessons learned will stay with the team forever.

New POVs in diverse sectors

In total, we signed six new pilot projects over the course of 2019. These were with some of the biggest players in the insurance business. The thing that really stands out, though, is just what a diverse and varied industry insurance can be. Let’s have a recap of just a couple of the new projects to illustrate the point.

Speeding up automotive claims

In a 12-week pilot with one of Belgium’s top bank-insurers, Blockclaim’s insuretech solutions brought the client instant savings of more than €1.5 million. The “quick wins” were brought about through improved efficiency through automation. However, the even more exciting aspect is that these represent the tip of the iceberg in what can be achieved in the longer term. Second-stage data enrichment will see the cost savings escalate dramatically, through both additional automation and fraud identification.

Medical benefits that go beyond insurance claims

Last month we reported a £1.5M saving on a project involving the use of contextual AI in delivering healthcare solutions. Specifically, the pilot explored how Blockclaim’s technology could make matching treatment and medication with patient conditions and illnesses quicker and more efficient. However, as soon as the round table discussion got underway, it became clear that there were a whole host of parallel applications. Initial indications point to cost savings in the hundreds of thousands of Euros, but these will almost certainly escalate into the millions once the full benefits are realised.

Blockclaim has also launched pilots with four other major companies in the insurance sector this year. But what makes the above two really stand out is that you don’t have to be an expert in insuretech to see the benefits. After all, every one of us has to deal with automotive or medical insurance claims on a personal level from time to time.

Looking forward to 2020 with perfect clarity

This year we have also expanded the team, welcoming Yanael onboard, and together we will be looking to achieve more of the same next year, but on an even greater scale. We’ll be looking to expand the business and work with new clients across three continents. So have a wonderful break over the holiday season – see you in 2020!

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Following a lengthy period of consultation and analysis, Blockclaim is ready to get started on an exciting new project. The pilot will see the team working closely with senior staff at one of Belgium’s leading bank-insurers. We will be looking at how Blockclaim’s insurtech solutions can help them to identify fraudulent claims with increased speed and accuracy, thereby reducing costs and increasing the speed with which genuine claims are settled.

Need Data!

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will remember the film Short Circuit and the sentient robot called Number Five. He constantly craved data of any kind, and the more he absorbed, the better and more “human” his responses and decisions became. This proved to be strangely prophetic, and is a concept that will be familiar to those working in and around data analytics.

Blockclaim’s ML product might not have caterpillar wheels or a wiseguy attitude, but conceptually, it works in a similar way to Number Five. The more data we feed into it, the smarter it gets, meaning it will be able to identify more fraudulent claims in a shorter timeframe.

The potential stumbling block comes down to the personal nature of the data that goes onto the form. In an ideal world, the insurer would provide us with every piece of information that is available about the claimant, the vehicle and the incident, by simply sharing everything that is contained on the claim form.

Meeting data protection obligations

We all know that personal data and its protection has to be taken extremely seriously. For one thing, breaching GDPR regulations can have serious legal consequences. But regardless of that, every one of us is a potential insurance claimant. It’s one occasion on which we have no difficulty stepping into the end user’s shoes and the simple fact is that if we were involved in a vehicle accident, we would expect the insurer to treat our personal information with professionalism and respect.

That is not to say that data of a personal or sensitive matter is completely off-limits. It is simply the case that providing it means additional checks, due diligence and process implementation for the client. In other words, it is up to us to show that providing data of this nature adds value for the client and is worth the extra effort.

What are the benefits?

Blockclaim can bring plenty of benefit even by using only the non-sensitive information that is provided on a typical claim form. This alone will increase fraud detection by validating some of the basic information relating to drivers, vehicles and circumstances surrounding an accident.

Adding personal information to enrich the data will improve the effectiveness by an additional factor of around 50 percent. That sounds impressive, but what does it mean in financial terms?

Just the time saved by auto-adjudication through checkbox verification and number recognition will bring annual savings of around €75,000 per annum. However, with full disclosure of all available data, this can easily be doubled.