WorkFusion and SS&C combine industry chops to tackle insurers’ straight-through processing challenge

The Bottom Line: Easier life for insurers seeking straight-through success – if partners can remove integration and multi-vendor management headaches

WorkFusion and SS&C’s partnership brings together industry-specific automation tech and services. Together they can make life easier for insurance leaders seeking to raise the percentage of straight-through processing they deliver. “Straight-through” processing refers to transactions that are passed “straight through” the system from start to finish, without manual intervention.

But, like so many partnerships, the proof is in the pudding. To be judged a success, they must take away the integration and multi-vendor management headaches of stitching together alternative solutions, which demands rapid and easy-to-apply integration and closely aligned go-to-market and delivery teams.

The process automation experts at WorkFusion are linking up with SS&C to solve insurance customers’ challenges in a partnership focused on replacing document-heavy, labor-intensive processes with data-led automation.

SS&C is a global provider of both services and software for the financial services and healthcare industries. The combined intent is to tackle paper-heavy, manual process challenges of the kind that hold back straight-through processing, such as those found in new submissions in commercial insurance, in which each item can take 30 minutes to process manually.

The SS&C and WorkFusion approach combines both technology and SS&C services. SS&C’s technology extracts automation-ready data submitted by brokers. WorkFusion’s automation use cases apply the data to deliver automated solutions. WorkFusion’s “use cases” are a library of industry and function-specific solutions. In insurance, for example, in “Claims Intake,” it offers solutions for First Notice of Loss, Paper Claims Intake, Repair Quote Approval, Not In Good Order Claims Identification, and many others.

Carrier sees early benefits—answering brokers four times faster

WorkFusion says one top property and casualty insurance carrier is seeing early returns on its investment in the combined solution, with efficiency gains already making a quick difference. For example, brokers are able to receive answers four times faster than previously.

SS&C’s services capabilities mean the partnership also delivers an updated operating model to bring straight-through processing to data collection across the underwriting life cycle.

When WorkFusion landed $220 million in Series F funding earlier this year, leaders told HFS the focus would remain on banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). This new partnership doubles down on that intent. But SS&C’s relationships in the adjacent and highly regulated world of healthcare also align with WorkFusion’s strategic ambitions. The company is keen to stick to its mission of servicing industries operating with high regulation.

An automation partnership with industry-specific services muscle

There’s no single silver-bullet technology solution to straight-through processing for insurers out there. Enterprise leaders find they must stitch together a tech solution from among a range of vendors. And, when stitching together, the more closely partnered and technically integrated the elements are, the better.

The tech may deliver faster, more accurate processes—­but it will not improve them. This is where the SS&C service elements of the partnership can help. SS&C services, which include consulting, implementation, and managed services, support the development and improvement of processes—in this case, across the underwriting life cycle.

WorkFusion and SS&C together offer a great example of vendors partnering to bring the OneOffice mindset to market. Their shared industry-specialized chops, SS&C’s data capture and services, and WorkFusion’s library of specific end-to-end process automation solutions mean customers can move beyond tactical task-based automation toward end-to-end and cross-silo automation with the opportunity to transform ways of working.

Headquartered in Windsor, Connecticut, SS&C works with 18,000 financial services and healthcare organizations around the world.

WorkFusion is arguably the original intelligent automation company. Its process automation product was the first to natively integrate robotic process automation (RPA) with machine learning to tackle unstructured data. Its solutions library, powered by learning bots, artificial intelligence, and analytics, is specialized in banking, insurance, and healthcare companies.

Looking forward, both WorkFusion and SS&C must acknowledge and deliver against the range and depth of emerging expectation in the industry—for solutions that deliver end-to-end. From WorkFusion’s point of view, the move makes good on its promise to continue with its regulated industries theme, with healthcare payers and providers next on the roadmap. Industry depth rather than coverage breadth is looking like a wise route to remaining relevant in a rapidly commoditizing automation market.