Meet the insurtech: Roots Automation

Is AI changing the relationship between humans and their technology tools? Roots Automation, a new insurtech, refers to its software as a 'digital co-worker.' The company pitches its product, which can perform a number of insurance tasks, as a solution to talent scarcity and as an alternative to robotic process automation across the insurance value chain – with applications for carriers, third-party claims administrators, brokers and agents alike. 

"When we talk about a digital co-worker, we're really talking about a piece of software AI that can act as an underwriting or a claims assistant for an insurance company," says Chaz Perera, CEO and co-founder of Roots Automation.

If, for example, a claim comes into a commercial property insurer it often comes in via email. "What the digital co-worker will do is monitor that inbox, grab that email, read the email, read the attachments, and figure out okay, what data is in here, that it needs to be able to actually set up the claim,"Perera says. "If the data is incomplete, if the data is missing, it will say well, okay, can I figure out on my own what that data could or should be? And assuming I have the data I need, I'm going to go enter it into the claim system so that it can produce a claim number and then it can effectively acknowledge that claim, send that claim number to the injured party and to the insured to let them know that, hey, the company has it, they're working on the claim it's been assigned to an adjuster, etc."

Another example, on the underwriting side, might be a loss run document or the claim history that insured has had with other insurance carriers and their current insurance carrier. That data is unstructured and so what the AI does is read it and determine what is pertinent to underwrite the policy? Can it be found? Can it be ordered in the right way? Can the math be done on it?

"The idea here is that the digital co-worker is doing all the setup work, and leaving the decision making, and the communication with the customer to the expert, the underwriter or the claims adjuster. Because we fundamentally believe that your brand as a trusted company is made in the conversations that you're having with your customers. So, that's where technology should step away and let humans, you know, lead," Perera says.

There are situations where a 'digital co-worker' is doing the work of 10 people, Perera says. 

"Our customers either use it as an alternative to people because they're struggling to find talent. So, not necessarily because they're looking to cut, but that their business is growing and they're struggling to hire. … The other concept is reducing leakage. You use a digital co-worker to surface the important activities and actions that as a human, it's hard for you to identify."

The insurtech plans to expand into more product lines and believes its software will be accepted by the industry. The company received $10 million in Series A funding last year.

"With the advent of ChatGPT and other large language models like these other companies, what we're really focused on is getting to a point where you can send a document or a series of documents to a 'digital co-worker' and just say, 'What do I need to know?' That's a really blanket statement but the 'digital co-worker' will turn back to you and say, 'You're a property claims adjuster here is what you need to know about all the things you sent for you to effectively handle this claim.'"