Insurance Technology Featured Article

Aflac Awarded for One Day Pay Program

By John Casaretto
Contributing Writer

The supplemental insurance company, American Family Life Assurance Company, also known as Aflac, has done a tremendous job in utilizing technology to provide excellent service for its many subscribers. The company was recently rewarded for those efforts with The IDG Enterprise 2016 Digital Edge 25 award for the company’s One Day Pay Initiative.

This initiative is a program which is designed to pay out claims to the company’s clients within one business day. The initiative was launched in order to attract customers and to improve the satisfaction ratings, and it relied heavily on information systems to deliver the best experience.

The insurance industry is a very competitive business, and the Aflac program is a major differentiator that customers have responded positively to. The One Day Pay system allows customers to use their web portal accounts and file claims by uploading all of the required supporting documents including scanned images or photos of documents. Additionally, the customer can use their smartphones to scan, capture, and record any pertinent claim information.

Completed claims made before 3 p.m. Easter Standard Time are paid out by midnight the same day. Depending on the customer’s choice, payments are either automatically deposited or available the next day, or a traditional check payment will be mailed on business days.

While it looks like a simple application on the site, the program required the deployment of specialized systems that were designed to do things such as accepting digital photos and documents. Systems were also built to handle the financial transactions, update internal systems, and sync this into the customer information port. The digital operation automated what was once a largely manual process and it is the biggest reason behind the reduction in claims processing time. Aflac processes claims for a number of coverage types which includes accidents, hospital stays, x-rays, and even cancer benefits.

The program and the award given to the company are tangible confirmations of the opportunities for businesses to attract new business using digital technology. CIOs are continually looking at utilizing modernized platforms to improve the business bottom line, which makes this an outstanding case to observe.

IDG enterprise also awarded Julia Davis who is a senior vice president at Aflac and the chief information officer with an additional award known as the 2016 ComputerWorld Premier 100 Technology Leaders Award. This award recognizes the leadership and effort that went into the deployment this successful initiative.