Bitesize Impact 25: Snapsheet
August 2, 2019 George Hanks
Snapsheet is a digital claims solution for P&C insurers.
We spoke to CJ Przybyl, Chief Strategy Officer, about the business and get an update on progress since we included them in the InsurTech Impact 25 2019.
Oxbow Partners: What is Snapsheet?
CJ Przybyl: Snapsheet offers a full end-to-end claims management platform to the P&C industry. Our software platform enables insurance carriers to provide a dynamic and seamless claims experience to their customers, brokers and internal adjusters. We can launch propositions in months and not years.
Snapsheet is headquartered in Chicago and currently works with over 75 insurance carriers across the globe. With over 500 employees, Snapsheet is one of the largest InsurTechs.
How do clients use your system?
In the US we offer a SaaS platform and claims estimation service. Carriers can launch a virtual claims process in weeks, either with their own internal resources or with the Snapsheet estimation team. Various modules can be launched to see immediate benefit, or the system can be used as a full end-to-end claims management platform for any P&C business line. Typical modules include automated omni-channel communications, dynamic photo and video capture, digital payments, workload optimization, and digital FNOL.
What are the benefits that your clients gain from using the system?
Snapsheet helps carriers see immediate benefits to their operations and ultimately to their end customers. In the US, Snapsheet has shrunk motor claims cycle times down to 2.5 calendar days while increasing the accuracy of estimates to over 95% – all while increasing the efficiency of staff, with motor assessors reaching over 30 estimates per day. Another benefit of the Snapsheet platform is the flexibility. Business users can create new workflows, A/B test automation and real-time metrics reports all without any IT involvement. This saves millions of dollars and months of IT development time.
How does Snapsheet fit into the claims vendor landscape and how does it compare to the big systems like Guidewire?
Snapsheet is truly an open, modular, cloud-based system. While it can be used end-to-end from FNOL to reserving for any P&C business line, components can also be launched stand-alone to show immediate benefit. The unique architecture and configurability allows the system to launch with minimal integration as opposed to a long, drawn-out system redesign that can take years.
The open APIs enable any third party to easily integrate into the carrier’s workflow at very little cost. There are also no updates or upgrades required, ever!
Any features that is developed anywhere in the world is immediately available for use and there is no downtime, no system reboots and no costly on-premise infrastructure required. Organisations that have already completed their IT transformations can easily plug in the Snapsheet modules to add business value, and carriers who have not begun the transformation have a low cost alternative that can launch in months.
Are you seeing changes in the way that people are making claims technology decisions?
Claims technology decision-making has radically changed in the past few years, shifting from IT making most of the architecture decisions to business leaders selecting off-the-shelf tools for immediate use. The migration to cloud-based systems has shifted the discussion from on-premise and hardware capacity scaling to the application of software.
There is also less focus on how the software is created or where it is housed and more focus on applying the technology to solve business problems. Two to three years ago carriers started taking a deeper interested in InsurTech companies and started to pilot features. Now the industry has seen the value of many modules and is searching for ways to fully implement and operationalize the new technology. This is exposing many of the flaws in the traditional IT infrastructure that new cloud-based systems resolve.
What’s next for Snapsheet?
Snapsheet is currently building an open ecosystem for claims that will be no cost to the InsurTechs or existing technology providers. This will enable carriers to quickly launch new technologies and more seamlessly move out of pilot and intro production with immediately available metrics. Snapsheet is becoming the chassis for all P&C claims.
Make sure to read our blog post on technology ecosystems.
The Oxbow Partners view
Claims transformation is currently a hotbed of Supplier InsurTech activity, with ClaimsTech systems offering a viable alternative to the monolithic end-to-end systems traditionally used by P&C insurers. In theory, insurers can simply use best-of-breed InsurTech solutions from across the claims value chain to provide their claims proposition, accessing the huge ecosystem of providers.
However, in reality, the risks and costs of replacing a legacy back-end claims system mean that insurers often choose another path on their digital transformation, and maintain these systems at least initially (e.g. for reporting, reserving updates, etc.) and use ClaimsTech for very specific use cases (e.g. digital FNOL). Whilst this approach may not remove all claims technical debt for insurers, it does provide them with initial access to digital claims technology.
What we like about Snapsheet is its ability to play the role of claims ecosystem member (e.g. via its virtual appraisal tool) as well as its ambition to become the ‘anchor’ for the claims ecosystem in the future (i.e. the role currently played by legacy back-end claims systems). We see this approach allowing insurers to become comfortable with the platform in its specific niche (they’ve clearly had some success with 75 clients), thereby giving Snapsheet license to ‘pitch’ for other areas of the value chain in the future (with a view to eventually becoming the “core” claims system).
Oxbow Partners helps insurers design technology ecosystems and select specific systems. Our vendor database contains over 300 policy admin systems, 300 claims systems and over 1,000 other relevant vendors. Please send us an email if you would like help with your technology strategy or vendor selection.
