Prudential Financial, Inc., is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. Prudential provides a wide range of products and services, including insurance, retirement planning, and investment management, to both retail and institutional customers across the US and over 40 other countries.
In 2023, Prudential reported significant financial performance, with revenues of $53.979 billion and a net income of $2.488 billion, marking a substantial turnaround from the net loss of $1.647 billion in 2022.
Prudential is also at the forefront of technological innovation, particularly in the realm of AI, to enhance its operations and customer experience. The company is leveraging AI in automated underwriting, improving the speed and accuracy of assessments. AI also plays a crucial role in fraud detection, risk assessment, and data analysis, enabling more informed decision-making.
This article explores two use cases of AI that support Prudential’s business objectives:
- Optimize disability claims management with advanced machine learning: Leveraging deep learning and machine learning to streamline claims processing, enhance examiner efficiency, and deliver personalized, proactive care for improved claimant outcomes and financial performance.
- Streamline content supply chain to drive engagement and efficiency: Using generative AI and real-time data insights to address the fragmented content supply chain, resulting in demonstrable ROI, a YoY increase in engagement, and high sentiment ratings across media channels.
Optimize Disability Claims Management with AI-Driven Tools
Disability insurance is a type of coverage that provides income to people who can’t work because of an illness or injury. It helps support individuals financially during their recovery and encourages their return to work by involving employers, healthcare providers, and insurance companies in the process.
Research from York University, Canada, published in the Journal of Law and Social Policy, mentions significant challenges in disability insurance claim management, including restrictive definitions of disability that often exclude deserving claimants, slow processing times, and high denial rates based on inadequate assessments.
Many individuals face the daunting prospect of litigation to secure benefits, which can exacerbate financial hardships. The industry’s culture of resistance to claims and insufficient regulatory oversight further complicates access to necessary support, leaving many disabled individuals struggling economically.
According to the press release issued by Prudential, the company partnered with EvolutionIQ to use its claims guidance platform to enhance the recovery and return-to-work process for disability insurance claimants. Their collaboration aimed to leverage advanced AI technologies to improve outcomes for individuals on disability leave.
EvolutionIQ is a claims guidance platform that helps insurance carriers manage and resolve disability, workers’ compensation, and other insurance claims. Its platform- claims guidance operates through the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced data analytics to enhance the management of insurance claims.
Prudential’s cited press release claims that EvolutionIQ uses proprietary, next-generation machine learning to provide specialized insights that will help Prudential streamline the disability claims process. Through the partnership with EvolutionIQ, Prudential sought to:
- Managing short- and long-term disability claims to achieve optimal outcomes.
- Allowing examiners to focus their expertise on the most critical claims.
- Expediting the claims process for quicker resolutions.
- Eliminating manual tasks to improve operational efficiency.
- Enabling examiners to spend more time supporting claimants’ recovery journeys.
According to the company’s website and Insurance Business’s interview with Tomas Vykruta, Co-founder of EvolutionIQ, the platform operates using the following four basic functions to streamline the claims process:
- Distill: EvolutionIQ’s platform ingests and analyzes vast amounts of structured and unstructured claims data, including medical reports, interview notes, and historical claims. This data is processed through a neural network to distill the most critical and actionable insight.
- Assess: The platform assesses each claim to evaluate its complexity, risk, and potential outcomes. It creates detailed profiles of claimants, including their medical conditions, treatment plans, and other factors that might influence their recovery and return to work. It also pinpoints claims that need immediate attention from the team without wasting time searching.
- Intervene: Based on the assessment, the platform recommends targeted interventions to address specific challenges or risks associated with each claim. It tackles issues before they escalate by making an impact on the claim early, with the right resources, to deliver personalized claimant care and optimal claim outcomes.
- Elevate: It elevates the capabilities of claims professionals by providing them with advanced tools and insights. It also boosts team performance through dynamic, real-time insights. With these capabilities, the teams can track the metrics they care about, identify inefficiencies, and continuously refine their approach.
Screenshot of the EvolutionIQ platform dashboard. (Source: EvolutionIQ)
Prudential’s recent financial reports show strong performance across various segments, including higher net investment spread results and favorable underwriting in their U.S. businesses. The partnership with EvolutionIQ could contribute to this positive trend by optimizing claims management, which in turn can improve the financial performance of their group insurance segment.
For instance, as reported by InsuranceBusiness, in Q2 2024, Prudential reported an increase in adjusted operating income of $1.07 billion, up from $956 million in Q2 2023, partly due to better underwriting results, which could be further enhanced by more efficient claims handling.
Streamline Content Supply Chain to Drive Engagement and Efficiency
The traditional content supply chain is often fragmented, leading to inefficiencies in the ideation, creation, management, and distribution of content. As explained in Deloitte reporting from earlier this year, disconnection in content workflows can result in slow response times to customer needs, inconsistent messaging across channels, and difficulties in personalizing experiences for diverse customer segments.
As consumer expectations for personalized and timely content continue to rise, Prudential recognized the need to streamline its content processes to enhance customer engagement and operational efficiency. At the Adobe Summit 2023, Susan Somersille Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer of Prudential Financial, shared insights about the company’s partnership with Adobe.
Per the blog published by Adobe, Prudential Financial partnered with Adobe to implement a comprehensive content supply chain solution leveraging several key Adobe products:
- Adobe Experience Manager (AEM): AEM serves as a centralized platform for managing digital assets and delivering personalized experiences at scale.
- Adobe Experience Platform (AEP): AEP provides a data foundation that enables real-time insights into customer behaviors and preferences.
- Adobe Target: This tool allows Prudential to deliver personalized content based on customer interactions and data-driven insights.
- Marketo Engage: Used for marketing automation, Marketo helps Prudential manage customer journeys and engagement strategies effectively.
- Adobe Workfront: This project management tool facilitates collaboration among teams, streamlining workflows from planning to execution.
- Adobe Creative Cloud: This suite of design tools empowers Prudential’s creative teams to produce high-quality content efficiently while allowing non-designers to make quick edits without compromising brand standards
Screenshot of Adobe’s interface for developing creative briefs. (Source: Adobe)
Per the company’s website and other promotional materials, Adobe’s integration of AI technology plays a crucial role in optimizing Prudential’s content supply chain. Key AI features include:
- Automated Content Generation: Adobe’s generative AI capabilities enable the automatic creation of content variations tailored for different channels, significantly speeding up production times.
- Real-Time Data Insights: AI-driven analytics within AEP help Prudential quickly assess customer needs and market trends, allowing for timely adjustments in marketing strategies.
- Auto-tagging and Asset Management: AEM’s AI capabilities streamline asset management by auto-tagging digital assets, enhancing searchability and reuse across campaigns.
While Johnson did not share any direct benefits of this partnership at the summit, she noted, “We’re personalizing experiences at scale so we can expand access to financial protection around the world. This is not only growing our brand, but it’s also fueling revenue growth and achieving significant cost savings.”
In one of the case studies published by Adobe, the company claims the following benefits for the above partnership in one of their campaigns:
- 1.24 x ROI
- 365% YoY increase in the number of people engaged
- 94% Net positive sentiment for media and social media mentions
