Merchants Insurance Group Selects CLARA Analytics to Increase Operational Efficiency and Improve the Claims Experience

Business Wire

CLARA Claims DocIntel Pro and CLARA Triage Leverage the Power of AI to Advance Merchant Insurance Group’s Claims Processes

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
CLARA Analytics (“CLARA”), a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for insurance claims optimization, today announced that Merchants Insurance Group has adopted Claims DocIntel Pro and CLARA Triage within its auto liability line of business. These products will be deployed next year for workers’ compensation and general liability as well. The decision to incorporate CLARA’s AI-based offerings comes as insurance companies face a range of unprecedented challenges accompanied by intense pressure to protect and compensate affected individuals. To successfully handle a significant increase in high-severity claims, Merchants is now leveraging CLARA’s technology to provide its team with key insights that can more accurately determine claim costs and boost operational efficiency, effectively accelerating claim processing.

Merchants has been providing quality property and casualty insurance protection to policyholders for more than 100 years. Today, the company specializes in commercial lines and sells exclusively through a network of over 1,000 independent insurance agents in its business territories in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Merchants’ goals are to develop and deliver outstanding products, respond to customer requests, and resolve claims quickly and accurately. With a commitment to new technologies and online capabilities, Merchants strategically aligned with CLARA in its mission to streamline business processes and enhance efficiency for agents and policyholders.

Merchants claims professionals will use CLARA Claims DocIntel Pro to seamlessly identify, index, transcribe and summarize claims documents. This includes the ability to instantly review medical records and legal demands with important data highlighted and summarized, which dramatically reduces adjusters’ time spent on these vital tasks. Additionally, adjusters will utilize CLARA Triage to focus on the right claims and prompts so that they can take specific actions to expedite claims processing. Through the sophisticated application of AI, Triage makes it easy for adjusters to better understand reserving requirements and proactively manage claims that need attention while streamlining others that likely won’t require additional intervention.

“Merchants Insurance Group is recognized for its superior customer service offered every day to its policyholders and agents,” said Charles E. Makey, III, President and CEO of Merchants Insurance Group. “With the new CLARA Analytics technology, we are improving our speed of handling claims and significantly enhancing our overall claim experience. CLARA will also provide our claims adjusters additional time to quickly respond and exceed claimant expectations. This is a win for everyone.”

Leveraging AI to Transform the Claims Process

A key reason Merchants Insurance Group selected CLARA is because its products provide unparalleled guidance when agents are tasked with setting the reserve for each claim. Every insurance claims adjuster must predict what the total cost of the claim will be over the claim’s lifetime and ensure the company has the appropriate cash on hand to pay claims swiftly. Due to the complexity of claims, however, it can be very difficult to get the estimate right. This is one of the most important tasks adjusters undertake, as mistakes can result in millions of dollars in under-reserved losses each year. With CLARA, adjusters can gain confidence in setting the reserve due to sophisticated predictive analytics that deliver remarkably accurate results.

Merchants Insurance Group achieves tremendous value through CLARA because CLARA’s proprietary AI system is trained on millions of closed claims. Adjusters typically would not see enough data to make an accurate assessment of what the reserve should be, but CLARA uses both structured and unstructured data to unlock knowledge from medical notes, bills and other documents. CLARA’s enormous cross-industry data lake is referenced to generate valuable predictions and other insights for claims professionals. By leveraging CLARA’s cross-industry data lake and AI capabilities, organizations gain instant access to deeper data and insights so they can make faster, more calculated decisions that adapt to today’s changing conditions.

“There are more demands on insurance companies than ever before, which often lead not only to adjuster burnout and higher costs but also to claims processing feeling a bit adversarial or robotic,” said CLARA CEO Heather H. Wilson. “Merchants has been uncompromising in its commitment to both its claims professionals and its policyholders. We are thrilled that our products are helping them deliver the experience and service their team and their policyholders deserve while continuing to improve operational efficiency and manage costs effectively.”

About Merchants Insurance Group

Founded in downtown Buffalo, New York, in 1918, Merchants Insurance Group is a leading regional property and casualty insurance carrier specializing in commercial lines. Merchants partners exclusively with independent insurance agents because they have the expertise to match the company’s portfolio of quality products and to ensure customers’ assets are properly protected. The large network of Merchants’ independent agent partners spans across Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. For more information, visit www.merchantsgroup.com/.

About CLARA Analytics

CLARA Analytics is the leading AI as a service (“AIaaS”) provider that improves casualty claims outcomes for insurance carriers, MGAs, reinsurers, and self-insured organizations. The company’s platform, CLARAty.ai, applies image recognition, natural language processing, and other AI-based techniques to unlock insights from medical notes, legal demand packages, bills and other documents surrounding a claim. CLARA’s predictive insight gives claims professionals augmented intelligence that helps them reduce claim costs and optimize outcomes for the carrier, customer and claimant. CLARA’s customers include companies from the top 25 global insurance carriers to large third-party administrators and self-insured organizations. Founded in 2017, CLARA Analytics is headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley. For more information, visit www.claraanalytics.com, and follow the company on LinkedIn and @CLARAAnalytics.

All brand names and solution names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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