“It is very clear that the purely manual audit process is outdated, time-consuming, inefficient, and expensive. Our AI technology platform is a tool to assist those who audit restoration invoices, not replace them. Utilization of the tool will undoubtedly bring about positive change for insurers, claims professionals, independent adjusters, property owners, and restoration companies. We are here, and our aim is to become the new industry standard for restoration invoice audit and reconciliation.” – Anthony Troy, NovaData Solutions CEO/CTO
As Floridians are slowly beginning their recovery process from the vast destruction caused by Hurricane Ian, carriers, insureds, and vendors are all working tirelessly to help restore normalcy to the area as quickly as possible. With an increased volume of losses, we are reminded that efficiency in the adjustment process is imperative to superior customer service for the insurance industry. This can be particularly challenging when adjusters, building consultants and contractors see an exponential increase in their job volume and are constrained by time and resources. It is the citizens and business owners in these impacted areas that are forced to deal with increased wait times to recoup their insured costs and return to pre loss conditions. These scenarios make life more difficult for them and drive-up costs associated with the claim adjustment process and can often lead to overpayment of claims in general.
In recent years, the insurance industry has become increasingly focused on modernizing the claims process, especially with the heightened severity and frequency of storms like Ian. It’s imperative that all facets of the property claims industry work together in an effort to control costs and move towards more technology-based solutions in our claims handling process.
Estimates of losses: 8-15% on individual claims translating to approximately $1.9B across the industry
This is where we at NovaData feel we can make a true impact on the industry. With our AI powered platform, Rest-Assured™, we can quickly and effectively review restoration bills in an unbiased and consistent manner. We help the insured and insurance carrier manage the costs associated with mitigation work and help the carrier’s vendors quickly clarify potential issues in the bills which help expedite their adjustments. The AI platform completes the review in mere minutes and the cost is a fraction of that for manual reviews currently utilized by the industry.
It’s a no-lose scenario for all parties involved in the claim.
We have already received strong results from our clients that speak for themselves.
Because the industry is no longer forced to rely on manual reviews that often take weeks or months to complete, the formatting of invoices accepted by carriers and insureds should also be revisited. Historically, estimating tools have been used to come up with numbers the adjuster would review and negotiate directly with the restoration firm. Though estimators can be helpful, they are not invoices. There are issues we have found with how rates and activities are intertwined within estimating systems that makes bill review much more difficult. It is often found that labor hours are baked into various activities, as opposed to itemized, which makes proper analysis of the charges unnecessarily difficult and time consuming.
Invoice Entry, Review and Audit Report Generation: +10x Faster
Now that we have the capability to review these bills in an unbiased, automated fashion, it is important that we as an industry stipulate the need for true invoices versus estimates that don’t provide a clear picture of the actual costs for time, labor, equipment, and materials being proposed for a job. This is especially true in a CAT scenario when bill reviews are increasingly delayed and complicated by the sheer volume of losses.
Change is often daunting; but in this age of evolving climate risks contributing to increased frequency and severity of CAT losses, the insurance industry must be prepared to evolve and respond to the ever-increasing demand for timely and thorough bill audit services. NovaData brings a technological solution to the industry – the Rest-Assured™ platform. Adjusters and/or consultants can utilize this tool to significantly shorten the time required to determine an undisputed amount to be paid to the policyholder for mitigation work. The turn-around time is weeks or months sooner than if the bill review had been performed manually.
To be sure, technology has caught up to the problem.
The solution is Rest-Assured.
