Scout InsurTech Rising with ARK

Kelleree Hoggard, Vice President of Business Development and Chief Customer Officer, and Andy Axelrod at ARK, were interviewed by Andrew Daniels to discuss the company’s origin story. ARK was founded by Ben Lytle, who also founded companies like Anthem (now Elevance Health) and Acordia (now part of USI Insurance Services), with the mission of driving productivity and maximizing the potential of each employee at our client companies. 

ARK takes a company’s knowledge and applies it to automated call center and help desk operations, automated claims intake (FNOL), and virtual avatar-driven one-to-one e-learning. Whether using phone, email, SMS, or web chat modalities, the experience is configured to accomplish your company’s unique goals. 

Kelleree, you've spent your career partnering in the insurance industry and you've seen how the work actually gets done at the ground level. From where you sit today, what's the most important thing in the claims industry right now that most carrier leadership still isn't taking seriously enough?

Kelleree: “I think from a broader standpoint, it's two things. The tenured workforce that's retiring rapidly is a really big component. It takes time to rebuild that resident knowledge, much of which isn’t documented anywhere.

Additionally, policyholders have a different level of expectation now. Everything is instant. They're more informed than ever and they make decisions very quickly. They'll research their questions online or get instant answers from a chatbot like Claude or ChatGPT before they interact with their insurer. Employees answering the phones may not get as patient of a caller anymore.

Depending on the employee, this can become compounded by the post-COVID lack of in-person learning and mentorship. Newer hires miss out on hearing things around the office, quick check-ins with a colleague, and group learning. Some may excel in the digital-first environment, but it may take longer to pass that institutional knowledge to others. This can show through to a less patient policyholder who may have already researched their ideal outcome.”

The industry talks about the talent shortage in terms of headcount, but the more consequential issue might be what's actually walking out the door when a 20-year adjuster retires.

Kelleree: “The joking side of me wants to say it's certainly not the file load walking out of the door, because that's still landing on someone's shoulders. But on a more serious note, it's pattern recognition. An adjuster’s ability to pick up on social cues in conversation and quickly pivot to understanding when they need to speed up or slow down the process, or recognizing an anomaly and knowing when to dive deeper. Knowing how to manage that file load specifically for a given caller and claims experience is both an art and a science.

This is usually something that is both learned and refined over time, and ARK’s patent-pending technology can help carriers and TPAs draw that experience out from their tenured staff and make it available with every single customer interaction. Where it takes time to recognize, "hey, I've already dealt with this," or “I’m seeing an uptick in this,” having technology that can create consistent, humanlike experiences and leverage that pattern recognition and institutional knowledge in real-time can be game-changing for a carrier or TPA."

Claims experience is consistently cited as the single greatest driver of policyholder retention, more than price, more than brand. What does it actually look like when a carrier gets that right, and what's the common thread in the ones that do?

Kelleree: “The first impression is key, but the last impression is the lasting impression. I think the common thread is: does the policyholder feel heard and valued as a customer? If you're able to accomplish that, it makes achieving customer retention goals easier. Now, if you can do that on the front end without having to spend more time digging through the file for answers, you're going to make the back-end process more efficient, thereby creating a better outcome for the carrier and a more efficient experience for the insured.”

Andy: “Instantaneous quality interactions, providing efficient yet thorough interviews that don’t have to follow a certain path, speaking the caller’s language, and quickly connecting them to a human as needed make for a great first and lasting impression.”

Carriers are being pitched AI constantly. What separates AI that's genuinely built for claims from a general-purpose tool dressed in insurance language, and why does that distinction matter most at FNOL?

Andy: “Think of it this way: it's one of the worst days in someone's life, and now they have to file an insurance claim. How can you make sure that phone call gets answered immediately, that they feel heard, and that they have a connection to their specific carrier in that moment?”

Kelleree: “The average policyholder is only going to file a claim once a decade, and in some cases, that may be the only contact they have with their insurance company within that timeframe. So, a smooth automated First Notice of Loss interview and always-efficient contact center experience is the moment to shine.”

"If you make someone wait on hold or while you look into a file, their tolerance for perceived inefficiencies will be lower down the line. While it may take someone tenured to eliminate those inefficiencies today, ARK’s technology can do this at scale. Remember, this might be your only chance to “get it right” from the customer’s perspective. Consistency is key, and ARK’s technology excels at creating consistent experiences that feel humanlike. All of that comes back to deploying an AI-driven system that can use the institutional knowledge of a specific carrier’s best players, understanding what goals they're looking to accomplish as a company, knowing what to say and when, and putting those in play in that critical moment."

Andy: "The caller may want to unburden themselves of the terrible ordeal they just went through. Our technology can flex the interview to fit the caller’s needs, giving the caller what they want on your terms. Getting a higher quality recount first, then asking some of the additional demographic questions later, can be the difference between gathering crucial details or missing them entirely.”

Kelleree: “That's why I joined ARK. I thought it was really compelling to see what you can accomplish with specialized uses of AI. If you start with your own institutional knowledge and build toward the outcome you want, you can still make the policyholder feel heard and have a good experience in that one critical moment that matters most.”

A poorly handled First Notice of Loss doesn't just create a bad file. It can surface as undetected fraud, litigation, extended cycle times, and a policyholder who never comes back. How do you think about the downstream cost of what happens in that first conversation?

Kelleree: “Setting it up for success from the moment the customer dials in ensures you don't get off on the wrong foot, otherwise the bad experience snowballs. If you're building for a consistent, structured experience from that very first touch, you're proactively closing gaps that develop into problems later, whether that's a frustrated policyholder, a file that doesn't hold up, or otherwise. Get it right before and during the interview, and everything downstream gets easier.”

Andy: “Now, proactively 'looking' for some of these cues and red flags is where ARK excels at keeping adjusters ahead of the curve. While the interview is occurring, ARK’s technology is looking for your specific set of red flags to identify potential risk areas or fraud, so the adjuster starts on the right foot from the moment the file hits their queue. It can even identify where a user has contradicted themselves, and ask questions again to make sure nothing was misunderstood.”

What is ARK actually doing differently, and what does it mean for carriers who implement it?

Andy: “ARK drives the experience based on your processes, best practices, and knowledge base content. Knowing things change over time, much of this can be uploaded using our self-service management interface for ease.

ARK supports up to 42 different languages with automated switching available for the most common. We can deploy our technology using phone, email, SMS, web chat, and even avatar-driven video calling modalities, depending on the use case. We even had a customer ask us to deploy using a hologram once. Our patent-pending technology uses a blend of Large Language Models and proprietary components that enable up to 99.98% accuracy, given that the configuration and knowledge base content are correct.  

Setup and validation take just weeks from end-to-end, and we take a concierge-style approach to the onboarding process.  

We start with a carrier's own processes, best practices, and institutional knowledge, configuring an experience that accomplishes their goals and drives positive customer experiences. Whether the goal is to be as efficient as possible, identify risks or red flags before it hits the adjuster’s queue, or to provide as much information to the caller (no matter how complex) without transferring to a call center, ARK ensures every configuration meets the client’s needs.

Aside from the phone, email, and chat-based AI Assistants, ARK can deliver virtual training to your employees and partners at scale through an interactive avatar-driven audiovisual experience. This can also be purposed for one-to-one higher-value client interactions.”

Kelleree: “Operating in good faith is really important in the insurance world, and if you get it right all the time, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, regardless of what the surge looks like, that ties directly into better ratings and retention. That's the bigger side of the story.

Our tagline says it best: "Your knowledge amplified.” It’s even in our name; ARK stands for Augmented Reasoning and Knowledge.”

What excites you most about what ARK is building?

Andy: “We focus on experiences that feel unique through customization, delivering consistency in the process that brings better use of the existing team and better customer experiences. That and, of course, the big pipeline of new features we’re constantly implementing. The experience gets better and better each day for our users, especially as new capabilities emerge.

That means better ratings, and it ties directly into retention. That's the bigger story.”