Top 6 API Use Cases in the Insurance Industry in 2024

Only 15% of customers are satisfied with the digital experience of their insurers. Insurance companies need to adopt new technologies, such as APIs, to accelerate their digital transformation and remain competitive. More than 40% of consumers indicate that they might change their insurance provider due to a lack of digital capabilities. 

In this article, we will explore the top use cases of API in the insurance industry with examples and provide you with a data-driven list of insurance API providers. 

1- Mobile & web applications integration 

Each day more applications are created and distributed. Integration with mobile and web applications is beneficial to insurance companies as they can :

• Increase their offering,
• Access user’s insight and track their behaviors,
• Provide integration between an insurance system and other applications. 

However, ensuring that your application and API are functioning correctly is crucial, as users tend to abandon applications that function poorly. To understand if your application and API are functioning correctly, you should do application and API testing. 

2- Chatbots

Chatbots have various use cases in the insurance industry, such as :

• Providing customized quotes. 
• Answering customers’ questions.
• Filling first notice of loss (FNOL) documents.
• Managing claims processing including notifying the customers regarding the process and repair/payment details. 

To understand more about insurance chatbots, read Top 10 Insurance Chatbots Applications & Use Cases.

API that is connected to chatbots can: 

• Collect conversations between the bot and customers.
• Monitor and improve transcripts. 
• Integrate chatbots with ERP and CRM.
• Connect the chatbot to the backend.

3-IoT

IoT generates data that can be beneficial for the insurers by:

• Allowing them to better know their customer. Thus, insurers can better assess risk and perform more effective underwriting.,
• Increase product customization for customers (pay as you go insurance products),
• By alerting insurance companies when damage occurs, IoT devices improve the fraud detection capabilities of insurers.

An example of how IoT devices have impacted the insurance industry is drones. Drones have impacted insurance companies in 2 ways:

1. Some insurance companies have started using drones for making claims adjustments.
2. Insurance companies have started to provide drone insurance to customers that need it. 

API can be used to collect information from these devices and integrate them into insurance companies.  An example of a drone API provider that insurance companies can use is :

Intellias API

Intellias has developed API in their platform that insurance companies can use to get information about:

• Safety of using a drone to reach a particular location.
• Analysis of geometry for all local low-altitude airspace warnings.
• Recognizing drones and verifying drone operators.

If you want to understand more about how IoT impacts the insurance industry, read 6 Ways IoT will Change the Insurance Sector. 

4- Damage assessment 

Inspection of vehicle or house damage is a time-consuming process that can adversely affect insurers and customers if not done on time. API can connect insurance companies to automatic damage assessment platforms. These platforms utilize :

• Image & video data labeling
• Computer vision
• Artificial intelligence 

Customers just need to upload pictures and/or videos of the vehicle to the insurance platform to start their claim process. (see Figure 1)

Figure1. Automatic damage assessment

Source: WeProov

WeProov API

This API enables the integration of WeProov products, such as their damage detection solution. To see how their damage detection platform work watch this video:    

5- Claim processing

Paid losses, investigation, and settlement expenses formed 70% of the premium US P&C insurance companies received in 2020. Effective claim processing can enhance insurers’ profit margins. 

APIs can increase: 

• Efficiency,
• Productivity,
• Accuracy of claims processing.

They can integrate the different systems and internal & external data sources. The connectivity enabled by API can result in faster and easier :

• Access to information. 
• Verification of information.

An example of insurance claim processing API is : 

Athenium API

This API enables access to the weather data such as :

• Historical data on hail and wind for different locations.
• Weather verification based on location and pearl.
• Hour-by-hour weather data.
• 7-day forecast data.

You can watch the following video to understand more:

If you are interested in learning more about technologies improving claim processing, read Top 7 Technologies that Improve Insurance Claims Processing.

6- Underwriting 

Being able to price risk at an adequate speed is crucial for insurance companies. API can help insurance companies to become more agile and efficient when it comes to underwriting by : 

• Accessing more data, such as data from wearable devices 
• Real-time fact-checking such as employment status 
• Automating manual tasks such as manually matching information from different sources

An example of underwriting API is : 

Human API

Human API enables connecting health data from various sources, such as :

• EHR,
• Pharmacies,
• Patient portals,
• Labs 

The data can be used to accelerate underwriting and increase customer satisfaction. Watch this video to understand how Human API works.

To understand more about technologies improving underwriting, read Top 4 Technologies that Improve Insurance Underwriting. 

You can access our list of more than 40 insurance API providers here. 

If you are trying to understand how insurance API can benefit your organization, reach us :