Scout InsurTech Interview with David Squibb

David Squibb is President and CEO of Covenir, where he leads the company’s strategy and operations to help insurers deliver exceptional service through people-first outsourcing solutions. David was interviewed by Chris Luiz, Co-Founder and CEO at Scout InsurTech, on the evolving role of AI in insurance service delivery and the strategic moves service providers should make to stay ahead.

David, how do you see the relationship between AI and human-led service evolving in the next few years, especially given the narrative that human intervention in insurance is going away?

“That’s a great question, Chris. First, the innovation happening in AI and technology in general is moving at a much more rapid pace than it has in the past. What we’re seeing is that, in many places, it’s enhancing human-led service offerings. And that’s where I think it’s going to be hugely successful. Will there be places where AI replaces people? Sure. But that’s no different than any technology evolution. When we went to the internet, to mobile phones, to apps, a lot of that changed how specific human functions were performed. I think AI will do the same, just at a quicker pace. Overall, the places where it enhances human interaction are where people who leverage the combination of both will excel.”

When you hear predictions that manual processes and BPO models will be obsolete within five years, what do you think people are misunderstanding about the real operational needs of carriers?

“As I said, I think there’s a place where some operational tasks could go away through tools like AI. But where companies leverage humans are in places where you want human interaction. A good example is a call center. Could you get an AI agent to take your calls? You certainly can. But is it the right move to go 100% AI?

In a lot of cases, the call center is one of the only policyholder interaction points after the new business policy is signed. It’s one of the only interaction points a carrier has. So is that where you want AI agents handling 100% of interactions? Some companies will say yes, because it’s more cost-effective. Other companies will say it’s more about customer experience.

An AI agent could take some calls and reduce costs, but maybe you want a real person, a live agent, at critical times, like when submitting a claim, and they are stressed out, or worse, if there’s a fatality. Is that an interaction where you really want to trust to an AI bot to make sure they show empathy and the right level of concern for a valued customer? So we see low-touch areas where you can leverage AI tools or technology in general, and other places where you want an AI-enabled solution with a human in the loop.”

One of the things you mentioned was the importance of pairing AI with empathy, particularly at moments like FNOL, or when a fatality happened. What do you think a best-in-class human plus machine experience could look like?

“There are low-touch inquiries where an AI agent makes a lot of sense. If you’re calling in to make a payment or call in for a status, AI agents can do a great job there. But in most cases, most companies we’re talking to still really want a human in the loop.

So what we see is empowering humans with AI tools. For example, Chris, we use a tool we call Agent Coach. It’s an AI tool that coaches the human agent during the interaction. It’s listening to 100% of the calls and coaching that agent through the experience. It makes it more efficient because the agent isn’t looking through Post-it notes on their screen, or manuals on their desk, or even knowledge bases on their computer. It coaches them in real time right on the screen and tells them things like: ‘You didn’t use the person’s first name,’ or ‘You’re speaking too much,’ or ‘You’re not speaking enough,’ or ‘Be more empathetic,’ or ‘They just mentioned a fatality, this should be escalated.’

We believe tools like that can drive a much more empathetic experience and really improve customer experience, because those are the times when you get to differentiate yourself. And let’s face it, most of the time when people call their insurance company, it’s not a happy time. They’re not calling to wish them a happy Thursday. They’re calling because there’s a problem, they have to make a claim, or they’re concerned they don’t have enough coverage. They need that human touch. So we believe the tools are important, but they’re there to empower the human experience.”

You push back on the idea that tech is going to eliminate manual processes entirely, and I tend to agree. Where do you think technology is really creating value, and where does it fall short?

“I think it’s come a long way. And if we hone in on AI, it’s come an extremely long way, where you can get into empathy filters, dialects, language, and all of that. So I think it provides great tools. But again, it’s not replacing that human touch.

For me, the place where technology is really going to streamline, from an operational side, is on tasks that are low-touch or no-touch. And in a lot of cases, that can be on the back office side of things, where you’re not relying on human interaction.

Another example: we have a virtual mailroom service offering. Today, we get stacks of inbound mail and a human looks at it. There’s no reason we can’t apply AI to look at all that mail and sort it so we can determine: this is claims mail, this is underwriting mail, this is sales mail, this is junk mail. Rather than have humans do that, we can have technology do that part, and then anything that’s indeterminable gets kicked out as an exception.

So I think the places where we can leverage technology to streamline or facilitate operational improvement, rather than a full rip-and-replace, taking out humans and putting in machines. But again, these aren’t new concepts. Robotic process automation has been around for 25 years. If you can have a machine do certain parts of a task, you want to do that. But if I’m going to take my car off an assembly line that’s been completely assembled by robots and nobody has checked it, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Before I drive that car away, I want somebody looking at it.”

Given the pace of AI-driven change in insurance, what strategic moves do you think service providers need to make now to avoid being left behind?

“From my perspective, it looks a lot like carriers and technology companies. Service providers need to be doing the same thing. They need to be innovating, and they need to be looking at the way they provide services.

If all I’m going to do is offer call center operators, and I’m not innovating in the call center space, then I’m missing the mark, and eventually I will be left behind because somebody out there is innovating. Things like our AI Agent Coach, listening in on calls and coaching our agents in real time, that’s innovation. The next question is: how do we take it to the next level?

Since we’re listening to all those calls, we can take that data and turn it into insights we provide back to the carrier, like: “Your call center calls spiked by 80% for billing inquiries in the last 60 days. What’s going on with your invoices?” And that can feed back into product development teams.

On our print shop side, we do millions of pages of print a year, but how do we innovate in that space? The service providers that are going to come out on top are the ones innovating, the ones not settling for the way we used to do it. I tell my team all the time: don’t tell me “that’s the way we do it.” I want to understand: how should we be doing it?

So from my perspective, it’s companies that are innovative and really focus on customer experience. That’s why we’ve become known as the WOW company, because carriers literally say to us, ‘WOW, the way you treat my customer is really important, and the way you’re doing it is phenomenal.’ In fact, we see a lot of cases where our NPS rating is higher than that of their own internal staff. So we want to keep innovating so we can keep bringing a better customer experience to the table.”

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