November 2018 – IQ Versus EQ

Last month we focused on the importance of getting quality data (Click Here) as a pre-requisite for starting any data analytics project. For this month, we would like to move the conversation forward to how we should structure the data to provide direction in the claim management process.

We speak to many claim analytics teams that are frustrated with the claims operation: “we make the information available to our claim managers, but they don’t seem to use it”, is a sentiment I have heard many times.

To get to the root of this issue, we need to look at how we, as data scientists, provide information to the claim management operation. It appears that there is a significant gulf between claim managers and data analysts.

Claim managers are expected to empathize with claimants, to understand their feelings, to help and encourage claimants to return to work, and to provide a supportive service during their recovery. By the very nature of this work, claim managers tend to be of a certain personality type “feeling and sensing” perhaps might describe this best.

On the other hand, data analysts have very different personalities, logical thinkers with a rational thought process supported by data only.

Is there any wonder why, when data scientists serve-up reports which are full of numbers and probabilities, that these two groups sometimes fail to successfully communicate?

Somehow, we need to bridge this gap to be successful in our data analytics projects!

I was recently with a senior manager at one of our clients who was commenting on output from their analytics team:

“Stop giving me numbers!!”

We need to give claim managers direction, not likelihoods and probabilities.

The claims management process is a finely tuned machine. Claim managers are very busy people, they do not have the time to invest untangling ‘the numbers’ to get useful information.

In addition, we need to remember that there is significant risk in changing the claims process in lost productivity and reduced effectiveness. This leads to a perceived view of conservatism in claim operations.

However, this really means that, as data analysts, we have to step-up our game, to make the analytics mesh into the claims process ‘invisibly’…

We will tackle this topic next month, stay tuned!

Please contact us to learn more, email us at  info@claimlab.org