10,000 Baby Boomers Entering Medicare Age–AI Will Combat Resistance

10,000 baby boomers age into Medicare health coverage every day, classifying this segment of the health insurance market as the most explosive.

Major carriers are expanding their offerings to capture market share, resulting in an estimated 32% increase in the number of Medicare Advantage plan choices over the past year. Within these same markets however, 20 or more options are available, further confusing and overwhelming its target customer-- senior beneficiaries.

(1) Dave Rich, CEO of an online multi-carrier insurance broker, Ensurem, has developed new AI tools to offset the complexity of the health insurance market giving today's increasingly convenience-oriented consumer what they actually want--prompt and clear quotes.

"In our specialty," says Rich, "which is helping seniors and insurers match up to make the right Medicare choices, we sit at the busiest corner of the busiest neighborhood in the entire insurance industry." Ensurem's primary goal is to educate its consumers, match customer to product, simplify application, automate underwriting, and instantly produce finished documents. AI applications are problem-solving for seniors, decreasing patient care error, and vastly improving efficiency plus speed for insurers.

In health insurance, AI applications currently fall into two primary categories, cost efficiency and fraud detection. On the cost efficiency front, both insurers and healthcare providers are developing software platforms to recommend healthy habits and behaviors, such as nutrition strategies and exercise plans. Under fraud detection strategies, the development primarily focuses on AI analysis of databases of previously processed claims to isolate and identify possible fraudulent behaviors on the part of current policyholders. (4) Recent applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to insurers' products and processes, however, have been hailed by industry insiders as showing promise for rapid, significant improvement in critical areas such as risk assessment and customer service. (3)

AI Focuses on the Consumer

While most of these AI applications are still in a fairly early stage of development, the promise they hold is causing the insurance industry to re-examine its attachment to legacy IT systems and outmoded (but still common) procedures such as the manual re-keying of data between systems. (5) As competition for market share increases, Rich notes, the combination of inaccurate data and balky customer service will simply become unsustainable. Speed, clarity, accuracy, and price are areas in the healthcare insurance industry that are in desperate need of improvement. A recent Deloitte study summarized, that insurers gravitate towards developing complicated, difficult-to-understand products based on what they know how to produce, instead of focusing on what today's seniors need--clarity. (2)

About Ensurem:
Ensurem, headquartered in Clearwater, FL, is a leading technology and product distribution company serving carriers and consumers within the massive U.S. senior market. The company provides end-to-end solutions for carriers, including product development, digital marketing, and consumer-centric front ends and back end. For more information, please visit Ensurem.com.

1. Coombs, Bertha, "The 2020 Medicare enrollment season brings fierce competition for baby boomers among insurers," CNBC, October 16, 2019, cnbc.com/2019/10/16/the-2020-medicare-enrollment-season-brings-fierce-competition-for-baby-boomers-among-insurers.html
2. "A catalyst for change: How fintech has sparked a revolution in insurance," Deloitte, 2018, deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Financial-Services/gx-fsi-cataylst-for-change.pdf.
3. Mire, Sam, "What's The Future Of AI In Insurance? 9 Experts Share Their Insights," Disruptor Daily, September 30, 2019, disruptordaily.com/whats-the-future-of-ai-in-insurance-9-experts-share-their-insights/.
4. Senaar, Kumba, "Artificial Intelligence in Health Insurance--Current Applications and Trends," Emerj, December 13, 2019, emerj.com/author/kumba-sennaar/.
5. Vargas, Nik, "Are Insurance Industry Legacy Systems Really Worth Keeping?", Switchfast Technologies, March 29, 2017, blog.switchfast.com/are-insurance-industry-legacy-systems-really-worth-keeping.