ADJUSTED
ADJUSTED
Technology and Claims Rebroadcast with Sam Neer
Technology in workers' compensation claims isn't about replacing humans but augmenting them to work more effectively. Sam Neer from Berkeley Alternative Markets Technology shares how technology is transforming claims handling while keeping adjusters at the center of the process.
• Machine learning identifies potentially serious claims early by analyzing first reports of injury
• Technology excels at identifying patterns across millions of claim notes that humans could never process
• Digital payments and texting capabilities are improving claimant communication experiences
• "Human in the loop" models keep adjusters involved while reducing mundane tasks
• Cloud computing is making systems faster and more reliable with better uptime
• Technology teams need to spend time with claims staff to understand their daily processes
• Effective communication during system outages builds trust and transparency
• Balancing tactical needs with strategic vision helps prioritize technology development
• Incremental improvements often yield better results than waiting for perfect solutions
I encourage you to like, share and follow the podcast, as well as to leave a five-star review so we have an opportunity to help others find this podcast and enjoy the content we've created. Remember to do right, think differently and don't forget to care.
Season 9 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This rebroadcasted episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Matt Yehling, Directory of Claims at Midwest Employers Casualty.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkleyindustrial.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello everybody and welcome to Adjusted. I'm your host, greg Hamlin, coming at you from Sweet Home, Alabama, and Berkeley Industrial Comp. And I'm excited to share with you this rebroadcast. One of the hot topics in the industry has been technology and how technology is transforming the insurance industry, especially on the claim side, and in this episode we had the opportunity to talk to Sam Neer, and Sam has a lot of experience when it comes to the claim side and technology, as he manages quite a bit of this as a project manager for us, and so I really enjoyed this dialogue as we talked about how we go through that process, what transformation looks like, what opportunities could still be ahead of us and what companies are doing to leverage that on the claim side. So I hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1:As always, I encourage you to like, share and follow the podcast, as well as to leave a five-star review so we have an opportunity to help others find this podcast and enjoy the content we've created. And, as always, I remind you to do right, think differently and don't forget to care. Enjoy. Welcome to Adjusted. I'm your host, greg Hamlin, coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, alabama and Berkeley Industrial Comp. And with me is my co-host for the day, matt Yelling.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. This is Matthew Yelling, coming from St Louis, Missouri, along the banks of the mighty Mississippi.
Speaker 1:So glad to have Matt with us. Today. We actually have a special guest with us. That is with Berkeley. Actually, it goes by the acronym BAM Tech, but Berkeley Alternative Markets Technology. Our special guest for the day is Sam Neer, who is our group product manager at Berkeley Alternative Markets Tech. So, sam, could you say hello to everybody.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, Very excited to be here. Greg and Matt, and again I'm based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, where it's a little bit warmer not as warm as Birmingham, Alabama right now, but still there. And I will say, no one wants to say Berkeley Alternative Markets Technology over and over, so we might just call it BAM Tech just for all of our sanity, if that's okay.
Speaker 1:I think that's wise. I think that's wise. So the topic today this is something we've never really tackled in the nearly three years that I've been doing adjusted is claims and technology and the role that it plays in helping us do our jobs. So I wanted to bring Sam in today to talk to us a little bit about that, since he is part of the Berkeley company that manages our technology to help us be successful. Before we dive deep into the topic, Sam, I wanted to ask you a little bit about yourself, so I'm sure that you knew you were going to be in workers' compensation, right?
Speaker 3:Greg, you knew it it's like. And coming up as a small boy I would say to my dad with a glint in my eye one day, dad, I can do work in workers' compensation and a quippy line I'll have is either the way I ended up in the industry is either I found my way into making great technology products with great organizations and really affecting change, or I follow the goal of becoming the most stable, uninteresting version of myself. One of the two, and again maybe it's a little bit of column.
Speaker 1:A, maybe it's a little bit of column B hey there is a lot of stability in workers' compensation insurance, so that's the one positive right, it's something to be accounted for.
Speaker 3:So, with the 30-second background again, I've been working in digital technology for the last 12 years in product management, Started off in PR and analytics, then moved to telehealth right at the height of the pandemic Would not recommend trying to jump into telehealth at that time and I've only been in the insurance industry for a couple years now. But at the same time I've really just had a baptism by fire but learned a lot and I think insurance is a great area in SureTech that's having a lot of new frontier, a lot of old legacy systems upgrading. So it's a great time to be alive. And again, my specialization is claims. I'm beginning to dabble a little more on the policy and underwriting side, but the trends are out there that are impacting all of us and really excited to talk those through.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, I know the headlines right now. When you hear about technology, you hear about the mass layoffs of companies like Twitter and Facebook and everybody else Google. So there really is something to what you as you were joking. There is some stability that comes with insurance and workers compensation. It might not be as glamorous, that's definitely not the Silicon Valley dream, right but there's definitely opportunities for stability.
Speaker 3:And glamour is in the eyes of a beholder, right, and I will say that the impact and the scale of which we're being able to operate here at Berkeley is enormous, right, and so that's what I do. Enjoy that, and you getting to build technology that powers really a lot of what happens in the workplace is really awesome, so I'm thrilled. Okay, I tell my wife I'm the coolest guy ever, and she doesn't believe me yet, but she'll get there soon.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about technology and claims claims have been around for a while what do we mean? What's the role of technology in claims?
Speaker 3:I think that's a great question. Again, I'm going to start off with a buzzword, because everyone needs a cool buzzword to begin, but I'm going to say the technology in claims. The word of the day is augmentation, right? So with this is you know, the claimant experience is a very human one, right? You're in the moment, you're in the accident. How are you basically getting through that process? And that's why, at least how I'm viewing this is how can technology assist in that process to augment the adjuster and the humans who are very much interacting with that claimant at that moment and that experience, and also with the policyholders and also with agents. Again, there's a whole spectrum right here.
Speaker 3:But with that is, some people just try to say can we automate it? Can you just talk to a computer? Can you never interact? And yes, there's going to be the small paper cuts or the report. Only there's going to be some subset that can be automated. But the way that I've been viewing it, at least my time here at Berkeley, is how can we use the best of technology to augment the best of humans to really attack these problems? So that's where I believe that most places will say just throw a computer or machine learning model at it. But in reality, how can we leverage technology to leverage humans is the way that at least I've been trying to approach it.
Speaker 2:Can you give an example a recent example maybe of how you're using technology to augment something in the claims industry?
Speaker 3:Way too many, matt. And again, this is what keeps me on my toes, right. So with that, for instance, sometimes again we will use machine learning or what some people call AI. So ML is the buzzword, machine learning which is sometimes people call it AI, it's all these different cool terms, right? Just saying hey, the Skynet is doing something in the background.
Speaker 3:So from there we, at least some of our Berkeley time will say hey, when a new claim comes in, based off the first report of injury.
Speaker 3:How do we get some of these early details to identify whether it's going to be a large-scale claim or just the paper cut right. And again, when it's the smaller ones, we're saying hey, an adjuster doesn't need to do 17 of the normal steps. Again, all the regulatory and must-have requirements we're always doing to meet the laws of the land, but some of the steps of the process, all the follow-ups. We can reduce some of that on that, when the machine learning or AI or Skynet identifies saying hey, you don't need to do everything on this one, right, and we don't get it 100%, but directly. That saves some time. So we just do the human steps, the augmentation where they need to plug in and reduce some of that early. So that's a good example where we're saying, hey, technology will identify some things. Example where we're saying, hey, technology will identify some things that reduce some of those steps, but we still have the human doing the must-have steps in that process.
Speaker 1:I think it's really key one of the things you're highlighting there and that we're not in a state where we're looking for technology to replace human beings, but if we could redeploy some of those efforts so we have time to do the things humans are really good at. That's one of the things that can make us special if we allow computers to help us and technology to help us improve the processes. Sam, what are some of the misconceptions you see when you start to hear about how technology can improve claim processes? You're dealing with a lot of claims people who probably don't all have high levels of technology background, and so what are some of those misconceptions you sometimes hear, where there's some, you know, maybe they don't align with what's actually, what actually can be done.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think that's a great question, greg, and, but I will say it's. There's two ends of that spectrum, of those misconceptions, right. One is that technology, hey, anything that I don't like doing right now, technology can solve. It can solve world hunger just with a single flitch. Sam, here's an idea. Just go make it happen, wave your magic technology wand and it's just like my parents, when I go home for Christmas, think that I, because I work in technology, can solve all of their router problems and printer problems.
Speaker 3:Some people think that, hey, technology can solve anything you want there, just like the printers, the TV's broken, can you fix the Roku it you want there, just like the printers, the TV's broken, can you fix the Roku it's like I can't do everything, folks. So that's one end of the spectrum and the other one is that misconceptions is that technology can't do some of the cool things that humans historically could do, and some of those which, when you actually talk about it, makes sense Like, hey, we want technology to catch mistakes or errors, right, oh yeah, of course I would like that. Or could it reduce mundane, repeatable tasks? So you're doing like think, work and not just click, work, right. But the two ends of those spectrums are always fun, and especially insurance.
Speaker 3:Some it tends to gravitate towards oh, technology isn't going to be able to do anything. So that's the fun conversation, and I'll actually flip the question back to you. How have you all seen, like what are some of the misconceptions you've found, or working in this industry longer than I have that you know that come up a lot as well. Is there any different ones besides from those two extremes?
Speaker 1:All right, Well, I was just going to say the one I've seen the most in my experience has been that often technology can do things, but what's not being calculated is the amount of time and effort and resources that would have to be deployed to get there. And so often I feel like adjusters, managers, supervisors have the want list, and the want list might save them five minutes, but it might take 10 years to accomplish it today. So then the prioritization becomes the issue. It's not always that it can't happen. It probably could, but is it really worth having that happen, for what it's going to cost?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my example would be the first notice of loss and automation of that and triggering, maybe, keywords. You gave the example of highlighting a more serious claim, so you trigger it on words like amputation, traumatic brain injury and those go to a more experienced, high-level claims person, versus you have something where it's like contusion, laceration, and those things get assigned to a newer person or somebody maybe with less experience. So I mean, I've seen some examples of that through automation and augmentation I guess you know the word we're using. So that would be an example I've seen of where it's been applied in the industry versus having it go basically across the spectrum. A new claim comes in and always goes to Sandra because Sandra reviews every new claim. It's like, well, if we can identify those things and you might identify 80 percent of the stuff and then Sandra just gets 20% and then that time that Sandra's freed up is now able to go and do some other tasks, versus all she's doing is reviewing new losses coming in. So that's a recent example I've seen.
Speaker 3:I love that example, man, because I will say it's like it's a combination of routing rules saying hey, and we're picking out words. But this is where technology, like we say, can assist is sometimes when you have to write the exact if-then rules and then you forgot a derivation right. Some people call things very similarly. There's also this idea in technology called stemming, where you know you do plurals or ING or things like that, right, and that's where you can say, hey, technology with natural language processing, called NLP, come up with all variations of this type of word or even recommend words. And that's what it's getting crazy right now. It's saying here I'll just recommend these 20 other words.
Speaker 3:Should these route to this type of adjuster who's going to handle this type of catastrophic claim, for instance, or this cat claim? So that's where it can use the combination of an if-then rule set. That's kind of basic but it's good in technology. But then can technology figure out a few more examples around that to help escalate that. I love that example and again, it's one we're even looking to utilize here to some degree. And how can we expand and enhance that as well?
Speaker 2:And it's small things, and then you can continue to build on them too. Right, it's nice to have the home run, but a lot of times it's the little singles. And how do you gain little efficiencies, the 1%? You know better improvement, and then you know that becomes exponential improvement over time, right?
Speaker 2:So Sandra now has you know, 80% of her time freed up to do more meaningful other tasks. You know, we're not trying to eliminate her role. We're trying to elevate her role into like okay, let's, you know, you're better utilized in this capacity versus you know reading. Yeah, I mean, that's another example. I mean and the difficulty I work with a lot of attorneys and nurses. You know the difficulty I get a little pushback from them is I'm in the show me state, I'm in St Louis, I'm in Missouri, they want to see everything. So that's some of the difficulties I experience. On the kind of the reverse end, like no, let me review the document, give me the document.
Speaker 3:And one of the fun things about the changes in technology is sometimes under the hood. It is not easy to decouple with machine learning and AI and insert buzzwords I mean, I joke Skynet from the Terminator back in the day, right, but to that end is, it can't always show you that way. So that's where, sometimes, again, the idea of again buzzword, back again augmentation, where you could say the computer or ML or AI recommended this. Do you want to take action on it? So it's not basically making the choice all the way, but it's allowing those to say hey, oh, I want to double look at the document, the show me side, I want to. Okay, let me just double check to make sure the computer got it right. And if it does that 100 out of 100 times or 99 out of 100, maybe you start trusting it.
Speaker 3:So that's the idea. Is you don't, like you said, we all want to. Using a bad sports analogy, we all like seeing the long pass bomb to Randy Moss at the end, you know, with a touchdown. I don't know why I'm going to the Vikings in the 90s, but in reality the teams that just chunk it Chunk it forward like five yards at a time. Five yards at a time. The small incremental gains can eventually really get you there, and it's not as glamorous as the star play, but that's really what's going to move the needle in the long run.
Speaker 1:Okay, so one of the questions I had, sam, is what is technology good at in the claim space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's where I think the unglamorous side sometimes of technology is the piping right. Technology is a good thoroughfare of information, connecting different systems, facilitating seamless and easy communication interactions. A couple of ideas that come to mind that, especially in the claims space, especially as we as adjusters need to be more easily contactable, or basically reaching out to claimants. Things like digital payments Don't go say my old school checked my grandma like my grandma did. Can I get something in? You know? Venmo? Right, we've heard that. Or texting, right, like which kid under the age of 25 wants to have a phone call? They dread it. That's like is that a punishment, right? Am I being grounded because I have to answer the phone? So, everything from the piping to also thinking about where you can identify patterns, right, technology could say I'm seeing a lot of this problem. Let me just say this is a problem. What should we do with it? So we can't always say the what to do with it. That's the million-dollar question. For instance, one of our partners at a similar company, midwestern Employers Casualties, have this idea of identifying problematic claim notes. Hey, we've seen a bunch of these claim notes. This one is flagged for attention. Or another operating unit at Berkeley is also saying we've seen claims like this. You might want to go check those out. So these are the ways that technology can find those patterns, to then surface it, and then at that point the adjuster or the human can take it there.
Speaker 3:And so, again, the reticence is sometimes that technology is not as good as humans in everything it's like. Well, that's majority clue. True, we have a brain, we have the ability to think, but it can also look at 10 million claim notes and come up with some groupings of problems and say, hey, I've seen similar ones that a human would never be able to do. And then data validation and anything that we said earlier. It's not think time, it's just checking a box, because computers, they do make errors. Trust me, I've got a backlog full of bugs to try to tackle, but at the same time it's much more consistent than humans at that part. But trying to ask your computer, or even the newfangled chat GPT, I tried. You know that's the buzzword nowadays. I tried to ask it to write a haiku about claims adjustment and it failed miserably.
Speaker 3:So anything that wants perspective, but it did actually have a good song to claims. This is one aside about claims. I asked it to do a song about claims adjustments to the tune of Baby Got Back and it did. Says I like small claims and I cannot lie and it actually went there. So it started. It's getting closer, but the huge nuance is not. There is where it needs to be.
Speaker 2:Great points huge nuance you know is not. There is where it needs to be. Great points, yeah. So when you're working with, obviously you know individual adjusters, you're working with injured employees, you're working with different components, what are some of the challenges in managing those expectations of the claim staff when it comes to technology and when it comes to, you know, enhancements and things like you know Greg alluded to earlier, like, and you alluded to when you're like fix all my stuff. Like, what are some of the? What are those expectations? Like, how do you, how do you normalize?
Speaker 3:those. That's great, man. It's like it's the idea of I want it all and I want it now Right. Like that's the problem that we're dealing with right here is like there's so much that we want to fix. Greg, you made a great point earlier saying, hey, we don't always necessarily know the size. This will save me five minutes, but it's going to take Sam six months to build Right.
Speaker 3:So some of the misconceptions that I want to when thinking about this question it's a really good question is that one? You hear about it elsewhere. Well, we can do it right away. Hey, I've heard about my friend who works at a similar insurance company. They have this cool button that brews some coffee and does X, y, z for my claim process. Why can't I do that?
Speaker 3:So the misconception is people don't forget all the piping, all the underlying architecture that goes up to make that. Another is the response times. We think that everything and every system is supposed to be blistering fast, which should be. Like my iPhone starts up in a second. I can't wait a second. Something pauses, even briefly. We're like what's happening.
Speaker 3:So the challenge is again these are misconceptions that are out there, so the challenge is trying to not just address them, but then overcome them. And that's where again product management comes in. My entire profession is to say, hey, we understand that your iPhone can boot up in a second and we understand that your friend can do X, y, z at this other carrier. Here's how we're different. Let's work within our sandbox and let's create amazing things within there.
Speaker 3:So it's really us trying to overcome those by doing the quick explanation, because you can't just say no, we can't do it. Then you just feel like either you're being talked down to, but at the same time, our role is in product management and even within technology is to explain what we can do. And then we partner with again great claims groups who are coming up with amazing ideas to figure out what we can do. I'll actually turn this question back to you two and saying you've seen a lot more of these mismanaged expectations over time and I know, greg, you said earlier, there's a mismanaged expectation of sizing. What do you think on technology? Technology teams can do better to help in that conversation Like what? As we, as technologists, what do we need to learn when actually engaging in that back and forth?
Speaker 1:It's a great question. I think on our end sometimes we don't understand how hard certain things are, not maybe how difficult, but how many hours would be needed to accomplish something, and so that wish list we've talked about can get really long, because we can all think of things that would make things easier. Well, if I just clicked here, then I wouldn't have to do these five other things. So I think, sometimes understanding also what other things are being worked on that are competing for that same time so we could spend five weeks adding a new button to the screen, or we could do this other thing that would allow us to automate small claims and so understanding the impact, I think on both sides, sometimes maybe the technology side might not understand the lift that would come from something, and then that's our job to make sure we're speaking up to explain that, and then, on the other end, I think, understanding how long it takes so that we're prioritizing the right things. I don't know what your thoughts are, matt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's something similar. I think spending enough time with the people doing the job is a lot of times the difficulty in making sure, like when I say I want this, like that five button example, or like I have to click on these eight things to have this happen. Instead of these eight things, like would it make sense to click on it once, and then it jumps to eight. What is steps two, three, four, five, six, seven doing? Are they doing anything like? Just you know? Sometimes maybe it's the you know three, four, five, six, seven, doing? Are they doing anything like and just you know? Sometimes maybe it's the you know the data architect or maybe it's the person that's actually, you know, the business analyst.
Speaker 2:Do they understand? And then sometimes it claims people really don't understand. Well, the reasons you have to click on steps three, seven are this like that triggers this, you know piping triggers this, you know piping. Like you know that, like sam was saying, like so I think there's definitely roles on both sides. Like the reason yeah, the phrase that everybody hates is like well, the reason we do it that way, sometimes there is a reason why it's done that way. Right, yeah, yeah, because an actuarial will come over and hey, you just cut out this process.
Speaker 3:We love those phone calls. We love those phone calls and I'll actually add something out there I think it's great to say is we, as technologists, I think need to get better at actually going and sitting down next to the person saying walk me through, instead of just saying I want X, y, z at the eighth step, like skipping steps two through seven, let me see why you don't need those. And then again, that's where the dialogue can occur right, hey, step number three.
Speaker 3:And I need to give a shout out to my amazing team who thinks through all these things. So again, we have a team called Claim to Fame where we really focus on claims. Shout out to that group where they'll say, hey, you forgot about regulatory reporting here or you forgot about NCCI. We'll have these different plugins of different steps. We may need it, but that doesn't mean we can't. We may need steps now, one and two, but we may not need three, four, five and six. So I think it's a good back and forth to be able to explain, but too many times we just hear I want to go jump from one to eight. We write it off as technologists says, can't do it, and then it dies and you lose that potential savings over time. So rolling up the sleeves and getting in the trenches is important. It just takes time, right.
Speaker 2:So how would you so? Greg and I are both in claims management and we manage the claims adjusters and claims analysts and examiners, etc. So we have prioritizations that are important to us. You guys obviously have prioritizations that are important to IT and to technology. What's the best way to manage those prioritizations and the limited resources? Because, like the example.
Speaker 2:Greg gave earlier. How do we manage something when there's only a limited resource, it resources and technology resources? Unfortunately, you know, we mentioned, you know, google earlier. Like we don't have Google money, we're not going to throw like all this at everything. You know how do we manage those prioritizations?
Speaker 3:These are the questions that make us happy that we're asking these questions, right? Well, there's a simple answer. Actually, matt and Greg, I will tell you. The way we prioritize is liquor and guessing Joking okay, I wish it was that easy. Or just a dartboard. It's like close your eyes and that's no, I completely joke, but I think a better way of for lack of a letter buzz phrase. It's basically like it's the voice of the tactical combined with the insight of the strategic right.
Speaker 3:So with that is, we need to anytime you ignore sort of the people who are living this day in the day-to-day. On the flip side, if all you're focusing on is the details and the weeds, you will miss the bigger strategic opportunities out there. So the first thing we need to do in order to prioritize the chaos that is a huge backlog and seems like 15 new things have popped up in the last 30 minutes since we've been talking is combining those two, get those two inputs and then after that, you need to basically then narrow it down quickly, because there's always way too much that you want to do, just like my wife has 15,000 home projects she wants me to do. We can't talk about 15,000 projects, we need to talk about five, right? So first is, get the inputs, do your homework. Again, with targeted homework, you can't boil the ocean, narrow it down and then pick a direction and go.
Speaker 3:I think it's sort of the idea that a lot of places have analysis, paralysis. And again, there's a show called Prison Branko, maybe years ago, where the guy Wentworth Miller who played one of the characters there she said there's only four rules you need to remember Make a plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. So even with that, things will go wrong at times. It's not. Any plan is not perfect, but you need to make it and you need to start executing it Right. So, take those inputs, lower it down and then go. But in reality, if you're not thinking about the strategic, then you're missing out. And, greg, I'll actually ask you as basically as a claims leader, what's important when we on the technology side should be thinking about the strategic. Should we be coming to you with the ideas? Should you be coming to us, or is there some better forum for us to make sure we're not missing that voice of the strategic?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like that conversation has to go both ways. But I do think you're right. It's really important. You don't want to have your technology department so focused on just better, and our competition is going to be looking for those ways to do it better. We're all trying. So if all our attention is just trying to make sure that the car runs, that's great, but we're going to miss out on some really important things. So I think talking back and forth and creating that dialogue of what's possible versus what can be dreamed up is, to me, I think, some of the first steps to really coming up with that. That's what I would say anyway, matt, thoughts on your end. Yeah, I like how.
Speaker 2:Sam put it. I'm a big James Clear fan, where you just have to start something about you know, ultimately, like you know, it's great to have the plan, but sometimes you have to start and finish something.
Speaker 2:You can't keep worrying about that being perfect, because then you'll never get anything started and you'll never finish anything. If it's always got to be 100% accurate, there's going to be little glitches, like you said. There's going to be little bugs. Having people understand that we're going to do that, and then Greg hit on it too, like we can't create something. That is also so bad, though that it's creating all this maintenance, right.
Speaker 2:It people and technology people want to work on new things, right. Unfortunately, like claims, a lot of times it's like we're a legacy. There's a lot of legacy stuff. There's years and years. There's there's legal components in this component and you know reporting upward components, so there's all that that needs to be factored in and sometimes that's you know, you know the minutiae. That's not glamorous and you know nobody wants to work on that stuff. You know it's all the fun new. You know. Things that everyone wants to work on right. Yes, very much so.
Speaker 1:I've heard it said that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. So I think there is something to getting started and just getting moving. Sam, I know on our end our claims people we're pretty good at understanding a lot of medical terminology. Now we're also pretty good at learning a lot of legal because we spend a lot of time in both of those worlds. We're also pretty good at learning a lot of legal because we spend a lot of time in both of those worlds. But when we start to get in the technical side, I think maybe I'm the only one, but I do think sometimes we struggle a little bit. So what are some of the challenges or what do you do from your perspective to break down some of these concepts and help the folks and claims understand what it is you're trying to accomplish?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a great question, greg, because, just as a technologist coming into insurance, it's sometimes you're like it's actually going both ways, because insurance is not the easiest and most straightforward at times, right, and I had alphabet soup for my first, like when I first joined I was like, oh my gosh, let's play this game. Which acronym is this? Is this the insurance company's acronym? Berkeley acronym? Is this the state acronym? There's two acronyms for the same thing. How do I survive it?
Speaker 3:But I think that idea is like, hopefully, things like this podcast where you're explaining things like in metaphors or analogies. This is like XYZ, or even my bad analogy of my wife giving me the honey-do list. How do we break this down into a shared understanding that we all have a chuckle as well, but try to talk a similar language and that's what product management does, usually trying to take stakeholders and then developers. So first of all, talk something out and if it makes no sense, try it again and then say explain it like you were explaining it to a five-year-old and everyone seems to kind of like roll their eyes, like no, okay, I can try to explain that, but in reality it makes you to simplify it and then get to a way that you understand it.
Speaker 3:Another thing that we do in our team a lot is basically diagram, diagram, diagram big boxes, like you're going to a whiteboard, and again we use a digital tool called Miro. There's other versions out there, but how do we just like there's a box here and it goes to this box and let me get this process to this box right? So that's how sometimes we explain the intricacies of APIs and batch jobs and all buzzword soup. When you hear again I'm sure when people hear our technologists talk, they're like their eyes are rolling. What are they talking about?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 3:And so this is why at least one of our goals is to explain what we're doing and why is I say let's make it stupid, come up with bullet points, not long paragraphs, and explain to it in a common language. And then, if there's follow-up questions and Neville is like, well, I actually care about, there's that one person in the room who's like I want to ask the detailed question, to be the teacher's pet, right At that point, then you say let's sidebar this and let's go to the huge deep dive. The same idea as, I think, on both ends. Also, when adjusters like you said earlier, matt is like they may just say I just wanted to do this, but need to break it down that way, I think both sides need to say explain it simply and then have the follow-up questions after that.
Speaker 1:Matt Levin, it's really easy to forget all of the things we just assume we know. And I could say well, we denied the TTD because of the IME, but we need to keep in mind CMS and somebody who's outside is like what in the world did he just say? And somebody in claims understands every word I just said, and I do think it goes both ways.
Speaker 3:I love that, greg, and I think especially because, again, a lot of developers sometimes are not even having that interaction. So, again, if you ever get a developer on a call, you'll rattle that off and they'll just be completely like. They're like, I understand none of it, so I'm not even engaged, right. So I think the goal is is saying, just like you know, I've seen great on this podcast people will explain what you know. What are these terms? Let me explain the context. Even if it's baseline, or most insurance adjusters or people will know. How do we here's, do we all understand what we're talking about? Yes, yes, yes or no? Okay, let's explain 30 seconds. There we go. Now let's move on. And I actually finally understood like it took me a while, but I actually understood exactly what you said. So that's where us, as technologists, we're getting there.
Speaker 2:We're getting there. There's hope, right, credit cards. So periodically the credit card system would go down. We still had the whole the old, you know, swiper probably too young to even have seen any of those but greg and I aren't, you know but no one knew how to use it. And then there's, occasionally credit cards don't even have those raised ridges anymore, so then you have to write it down and people are like what do you mean anyway? What happens when, when technology goes down and it's all hands on deck for you?
Speaker 3:guys, you just, you just panic. That's what you do. You just panic, you know, just like I don't know, no, it's like then everyone it claims home exactly, just like it's a shutter down for the day.
Speaker 3:I guess no one else is doing any more work, right, like those are. Those are the good old days of like snow days or something. It looks like it's gonna snow. I guess we just shut it down right, but uh, unfortunately we're not in middle school anymore, right, and I'll have to ask at the end, matt, how you survive those fun. Probably the, the cha-chings and people like you know, customers I'm sure love that and love taking time right. What I will say is, like anything, like any types, you've got an emergency on claims, whether it's technology, people forget that the techniques that you use, whether in you know either on the claim side.
Speaker 3:When there's a fire, whether it's at home, when there's a fire, whether anything, is you just one, shut out the noise and focus right.
Speaker 3:The problem is with technology is sometimes it's very hard to diagnose the problem. But you'll hear, hey, the system's slow or something like that or something's not working right. And then of course everyone trying to be helpful is like, oh, and this other thing isn't working and this thing. And then we have to like, okay, there's a lot of noise, how do we focus it? You start decoupling these things, breaking it down, and you hear, oh yeah, that thing's been broken for the last two years. Thank you for that help. It's not helping right now in the panic or the fire.
Speaker 3:But I think communication is also key because when something breaks, just like you had there, the difference is if you put up a sign saying, hey, our credit card machine is broken, it's going to take us a little longer to process payments, people are like, oh, okay, they know, they understand, at least I'm going into it. You see those sometimes like a big fast food addict. When I go in, someone puts a sign I'm saying we're understaffed today, please be patient. I'm like, oh, okay, this is why the line's taking so long. So communication is also a way, during those panic moments, to try to communicate it there, right, and finally send consistent messaging and then at the end give a wrap-up or summary.
Speaker 3:We had technology called a buzzword retrospective, where we get in a room and again, most people have retrospectives but we get in a room and say why did everything go so badly right? And it's never a fun conversation. You don't want to be having these, but you really need to have the tactical discipline and say here's everything that went wrong, summarize it and then send it out to your stakeholders for accountability. I've had to send Greg a couple of those emails last year and they're not fun to send, but I'm hoping that it gives the visibility saying hey, we're taking ownership for what did break and here's what we're doing to solve it in the future. Right, greg, when you get those emails from me, you're not happy to see them, but I'm hoping you're at least liking that we're taking ownership that we broke something, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think some of the things you know. We don't have these types of problems very often, but when they have happened, what I really appreciate one is just the regular communication, knowing. You know, sometimes it's every half hour hour. This is where we're at, this is what we're working on, this is what we're doing to fix it. Updates are going to follow, and then at the end that updates are going to follow, and then at the end, talking about, this is what we found out, this is what we learned, this is how it happened and this is what we're going to do so it doesn't happen again. I think that's a big part of it, and luckily we have a company culture where we can accept ownership and there's not a lot of finger pointing. That allows us to get better. So kudos to Berkeley for developing that, but that's a big part of the success.
Speaker 3:This is what I love working about this organization and why I think we are the leader in our respective insurance areas is the fact that we've got a great product and again, like you said, it doesn't happen often, but no company is perfect. It's how the company responds and we take ownership and then we say how do we not make sure this doesn't happen again? A lot of places that I've worked, even past, companies try to sweep it under the rug, saying companies try to sweep it under the rug saying hey, there was no problem, or let's just cross our fingers and toes and hope it doesn't happen again. We actually take the methodical time to really not just figure out what went wrong but enhance so it doesn't happen in the future, and that's why we're always pushing forward, which is appreciated.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome. I mean, how many problems bubble down to communication. Right, when it's like hey, like you, you gave the example. Like you gave the example, like put up the sign telling people you know we're moving slower today because we're understaffed, we know this is down. Hey, we know emails responding slowly or we're not able to get outgoing things or ingoing things or whatever. So just that communication. I think you know it's critical and hopefully this never happens at our industry.
Speaker 2:But that's why I had to give the restaurant analogy, right, yeah, when those problems go down we have the after action review, or whatever you want to call them, and we're able to improve the process right. Very much so.
Speaker 1:So, sam, this is the exciting part, I think, is where do you see technology going to improve claims outcomes in the future? So we've talked about some of the things we're doing now, but where do you think this goes in the next five years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's a really great question, greg. And that's what again exciting. We don't always just want to be fixing the bad things. We also want to be improving and really enhancing and making more fun for everyone involved the technologists, the adjusters, policyholders. There's a lot that technology can do to really enhance and so, for instance, the research firm McKinsey recently had a report, and again they call it what was called human in the loop.
Speaker 3:We've talked a little bit about this earlier, where technology can take some of the mundane heavy lifting but then keep the human apprised of the steps and, if they need to stop or double click or click in or, as you said earlier, find the documents, read the document, show me they can, but the human is at least tangential to that process, right? So they don't have to do everything, but they're in the loop. Another one is again the buzzword that was really big years ago, but you still hear it a lot is cloud computing, and most people don't even know what that means or like how does that impact me? But the better way to think about it is the Daft Punk song from years ago harder, better, faster, stronger. So cloud computing can make systems faster, more reliable, have better uptime, just overall better experience. And so that's another shift to saying hey, let's get away from the thing that's been in the closet, the server in the closet for the last 50 years Don't unplug. You see those signs like don't ever unplug this.
Speaker 3:More like we don't have to worry about someone tripping and just like, oh gosh, the system's down right. Another one is the idea of buying versus building. Some larger organizations like ours historically have been like we got to build everything ourselves, we got to do everything ourselves and manage everything ourselves. But really the great thing about Berkeley, while we're leading sort of this insurance industry, is we're thinking about what are we great at and let's execute that and let's augment with other organizations that do their best at, and then we make an ecosystem the best right, we at Berkeley are plugging in the piping, but we don't have to build everything from scratch, Sort of like, again, you're making your recipe. You don't have to do it the way grandma did, where you make every single ingredient from there. I can get the best ingredient from here, the best ingredient here, best ingredient from here, and still make that delicious dessert. Man, I'm making myself hungry at this point.
Speaker 3:And then the last word is we talked about machine learning and AI, Again sort of with the idea of human in the loop. But where can we leverage those technology areas to really solve problems that we didn't even think about? Right, Like one of the exciting things that we in the technology side saying go to the basic question, the job to be done of what are we trying to do here and where can technology assist so we're able to ask bigger and bigger questions, it seems like every year, but then again we then have to go back to the drawing board. Can it actually do it?
Speaker 3:Is it regulations. But it's exciting to happen to be an insurance tech, so it gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 1:I agree, but it's exciting to happen to be an insurance tech, so, like I, you know, gets me up in the morning, I agree. And when I think back on, when I started my career, you know, maybe four or five years in some of the data analytics was starting to, you know, really start to get into insurance and everything was about filling out a field, right. There's a new box every five minutes. Here's a new box, here's a new box right, because we have to capture the data and so, as a frontline adjuster, it was a nightmare because it was like well, now I've got to make sure I find the 900 boxes and all the data goes in the right boxes, right.
Speaker 1:But I look at where we are now and some of the advances in analytics and being able to just cognitively not only read notes but start to make inferences about what those things mean, that will allow us to do things, that, instead of having to fill 900 boxes out, we can actually get to that same place without having to do that, which is exciting to me. To think about where that goes next, I don't even know what that looks like 10 years from now, but it's very interesting to see. Very much so, sam, overall, I've really enjoyed having you on here. I can't end the episode without joking. Our audience will never hear it, but in the middle of this technology episode, my computer had a blue screen of death and we had to stop the entire podcast because everything locked up and shut down. So even in those moments this stuff can happen, but the show must go on. The show must go on. That's right. Luckily, we have a great editor that will make this sound amazing at the end.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to end this season by asking each of our guests to tell us something that they're grateful for. I'm really a big proponent of putting good vibes in the universe. I feel like there's plenty of people doing the opposite, so my small contribution to the world is to make sure I put something good in every time I could think of it. So for you today, sam, what's something you're grateful for?
Speaker 3:I love this question, by the way, and again listening to other amazing adjusted podcasts. Shout out please go back to the library, where there's a ton of great episodes on Spotify or your streaming platform of choice.
Speaker 3:Great content there. But I have one professional and one personal. So the professional thing I'm grateful for is an amazing claims product and analyst and dev team. So again, I get to come on this podcast and tell everyone about it. But we've got a lot of great people who have been working for decades, who really get all the credit for supporting Berkeley Industrial Comp. And again, our alternative markets are BAMTEC. It's too much of a mouthful even for me to say, and on a personal level, I'll call it the five Fs, right. So my faith, my family, football film and finally, fast food. Okay, so those five really get me up in the morning and make me excited. So I'm grateful for all of those things and again, grateful for this podcast and the best co-host group product manager could ask for.
Speaker 3:So, thank you all for a great conversation.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Sam, Really appreciate having you as a guest today, and with that we will wrap up this episode and hope you'll follow us in future episodes releasing every two weeks on Monday. You can also catch our blog on the off weeks. So again, remind everybody to do right, think differently and don't forget to care. And that's it, guys. You.