Collaboration Ignites the Best Innovation in Insurtech
Collaboration Sparks the Highest Levels of Insurtech Innovation
Digital innovation is never simple. Yet, there is a whole new level of complexity associated with the development of technology for the insurance industry. With so many stakeholders across the property insurance ecosphere and so many regulations, innovation for carriers requires multi-route navigation.
So while collaboration is vital for digital development of any kind, strategic cooperation is perhaps an even bigger piece of insurance technology innovation.
Solid, trust-based cooperation is at the heart of the most powerful technology innovations for claims estimating.
Digital integration enhances adjuster claims experiences to degrees that no single vendor could achieve.
Cotality™ is a powerful Insurtech solution provider that transforms workflows with data and automation driven insurance carrier workflow solutions. In 2009, the company joined forces with itel, a property data and technology company that offers objective data and expert analysis of housing components like flooring, roofing, and siding to assist with repair and replacement claim decisions.
The two organizations launched an alliance to enhance claims workflows, starting with flooring-focused claims.
Cotality integrated itel’s Physical Samples service into its claims workflows, giving its users—hundreds of adjusters at the time—instant visibility into flooring sample identification. By embedding carpet sample testing directly into the workflow, Cotality and itel transformed adjusters’ lives seemingly overnight, according to Boogie Tate, SVP of Business Development and Marketing at itel.
“This collaboration solved a big problem in our industry,” Tate said. “Previously, insurers couldn’t get reliable, accurate data back quick enough to support fast, fair settlements. With this one integration, we could speed up cycle times to keep claims moving. Adjusters had real-time visibility into the testing instead of losing control of everything while waiting on results.”
With an instant view of test results as soon as they were available, adjusters immediately saw days shaved off flooring claims lifecycles.
Long-Term Trust-Based Collaboration Between Cotality and itel
It took deep collaboration between these two organizations, each steeped in property data in insights, to solve a problem permeating the industry. By connecting two processes to create a simplified workflow, with each provider executing its own area of expertise, adjusters have overcome manual, disconnected systems.
Since that initial integration, the wheels of Cotality's and itel have continued to innovate their respective yet connected technologies to provide adjusters with improved workflow innovation
Over the past fifteen years, Cotality and itel, have been able to innovate their respective yet connected technologies to provide adjusters with the most relevant innovations for their workflows.
Today, adjusters using Cotality claims platforms can amplify their estimating workflows through two key itel integrations:
For Roofing Workflows
Through the Asphalt Shingle Program (ASP) inside Cotality Claims Workspace™ or Estimate™, users automatically and instantly get more accurate, regionally validated shingle pricing.
For Flooring Workflows
Users can submit flooring sample information into the itel NOW app, and itel will automatically verify flooring data and populate estimates in Cotality Estimate™ with validated, trusted pricing. Users who send samples by mail are provided with results through Cotality Estimate™.
Both companies have grown immeasurably in recent years, via respective acquisitions that have added incredible functionalities to their respective offerings.
Here’s why high levels of innovation like the Cotality-itel integrations require long-term collaboration:
1. Collaboration enables partners to understand pain points with precision
Need drives innovation. But, in the insurance industry, there are many needs and pain points coming from many different directions. Insurtech providers must consider the carriers they innovate for, the policyholders that benefit from technology, as well as the adjusters and restorers.
It takes collaboration and gathering perspectives from as many subsets of the industry as possible, to figure out the right way, and the right order, to innovate. With both Cotality and itel being so customer-centric, this was the collaboration that insurers needed.
We’re constantly talking and deciding how to prioritize,” Scott Severe, SVP of Alliances and Industry Relations for Cotality, said. “At Cotality, we see the value of talking with itel about how badly the market wants a functionality versus how badly we want to make it happen, all while considering where the vendors stand. This is the collaboration that has driven the innovation.
By first addressing the challenges of physical flooring samples, Cotality and itel were able to systematically tackle the most significant roadblocks in the claims process. After streamlining flooring workflows, they applied the same principles to roofing claims.
The ceiling (literally) in this case isn’t the limit for itel and Cotality.
Working together to make sure innovations match the true needs of the industry, this alliance ensures that their integrations make the most impact.
2. Deeper trust yields more rapid innovation
When Cotality and itel began collaborating , alliances between property data companies weren’t the norm. This is a long-standing, trusted collaboration by any standards. The strong trust that the two companies have built has accelerated the pace of innovation.
Think, when you have your best ideas, it’s usually not in a work setting; it’s when you’re driving, in the shower, or walking your dog,” Severe said. “You need to be able to reach out to someone before that idea slips away. It also really helps if you can speak freely versus holding things back or carefully scripting what you want to say. When you have that deep trust, you can have uninhibited, creative conversations about concepts that may not be fully baked yet. Collaboration can’t happen in a vacuum; sometimes you need a comfortable touch point so you can react quickly and openly on the fly.
Because the Cotality and itel teams have built this solid relationship, every forthcoming innovation or upgrade occurs more quickly. There is more trust, and thus, less intrusive development guardrails.
3. Collaboration translates to data optimization
Both Cotality and itel are property data companies, but they do different things with data.
By collaborating, Cotality and itel have blended and converted data workflows to into more immediately actionable insights. Cotality created a place for testing and material identification in workflows so that it can complement and enhance other data.
The data cooperation between Cotality and itel has eliminated user need to sacrifice accuracy for speed, and vice versa. This collaboration has provided adjusters with the critical balance of both, which is essential in today's market.
Collaboration allows Cotality + itel to double down where they see success
The greatest claims innovations require intense collaboration. Even if just one individual has the great idea, it takes a team — a cohesive set of teams — to bring that epiphany to life.
The strong trust between Cotality and itel has allowed the execution of a continuous, evolving playbook. This open collaboration empowers both companies to innovate and integrate new functionalities as they become available.
There is more great innovation to come for Cotality and itel users. Thanks to this collaboration-driven innovation, claims estimating has and will continue to become even simpler and more powerful. This strong dynamic between two powerful property data companieshas and will continue to drive increased levels of productivity for adjusters.
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