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.
- 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.
- 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.
