(Members of CLARA Analytics team at ITC Vegas 2024. Photo credit: Tom Benton.)
At the recent InsureTech Connect 2024 conference in Las Vegas, Insurance Innovation Reporter discussed industry data issues with CLARA Analytics (Sunnyvale, Calif.) executives. The company uses AI-powered claims intelligence to optimize casualty claims processes and reduce costs. The discussion centered on how the insurance industry is grappling with systematic leakage and inefficiencies in claims management.
Heather H. Wilson, CEO, CLARA Analytics.
“We start with use cases, so we know there’s a lot of leakage that’s happening in the industry right now,” said Heather Wilson, CEO of CLARA Analytics. “We believe that systematic leakage [is occurring], whether it’s around the people side of it with manual errors, the inefficiencies that are happening, if it’s around process or around the technology pieces.”
Wilson emphasized that CLARA’s approach goes beyond simple medical summarization, focusing instead on enriching case data and leveraging unstructured information to predict optimal claim paths. By analyzing millions of historical cases, CLARA’s models can identify similar patterns and provide actionable insights to claims handlers.
“Our models are like a physician that has learned for 40 years on cases, and when a new case comes in, finds a case that’s similar,” Wilson explained. “That’s how we can provide a projected and predicted optimal path for that case and try to keep it on that path.”
Data Management and Integration
Mubbin Rabbani, Chief Product Officer, highlighted CLARA’s approach to data management and integration as a key differentiator. The company handles the complex task of normalizing and standardizing data from multiple sources, making it fit for purpose in AI models. This capability is particularly valuable for insurers struggling with legacy systems and fragmented data.
“We’re able to reverse engineer [the claims data and physician decisions] and really apply that, to raise it to the adjuster for the next step. So now you have all that historical knowledge at your fingertips to say, ‘if I have this particular scenario, what is the best decision?’”
Gabe Cossio, VP of Sales, CLARA Analytics.
Market Challenges
CLARA’s booth at ITC 2024 was a lively one, including a pickleball court and baby blue logo track suits (see picture above), inspired by last year’s Dunkin Donut Superbowl ad, which included track suits that “sold out in hours” according to Wilson. The insurance technology sales cycle is much longer, of course!
Gabe Cossio, VP of Sales, discussed factors complicating the sale of AI solutions in today’s insurance technology market: “We’re seeing the dawn of more AI governance committees. I would say it’s not complicating the sales cycle…but we’re having to be much more thorough proving that we’re complying with NAIC and state by state, ensuring that there is no bias the models, and that we’re not using anything that could potentially harm a claimant or a policyholder.”
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