A bank and an insurance company in the same group: why they need a unified inspection mechanism with the VIEWAPP service

A bank and an insurance company are often part of the same financial group. They may share a common client, related products, and even common infrastructure. But this does not mean that the processes associated with them automatically become unified.

This is especially noticeable in inspections.

A bank needs to monitor the condition of collateral property. An insurance company needs to inspect objects before concluding a contract and to record damage in the event of an insured loss. In both cases, information is collected about a specific object, but the processes may exist independently of each other.

As a result, the client has to perform similar actions several times, and the companies have to organize separate inspections, even though technologically many of them are built on the same principle.

A unified digital inspection mechanism solves this problem: a single approach to self-inspection can be used by both the insurance company and the bank — for different tasks, but without unnecessary actions for the client.

One object — multiple processes

Imagine a client who simultaneously uses a banking and an insurance product of the group. For the bank, their car or real estate may be collateral. For the insurance company, it is an insured object.

The bank needs to periodically make sure that the object exists, is in the required condition, and corresponds to the recorded data. The insurance company needs to obtain information about the condition of the object when concluding a contract or when an insured event occurs.

If each process is organized separately, the client may go through an almost identical procedure several times: wait for an employee, take photographs, submit documents, and answer the same questions.

At the same time, the problem is not only the inconvenience for the client. For the companies, this means additional site visits, manual processing, and duplication of operations.

Digital inspection allows the task to be viewed differently: instead of creating a separate process for each organization, use a common mechanism where inspections are reused.

Self-inspection instead of organizing each site visit

The client can independently complete both a bank inspection and a pre-insurance inspection: the application sequentially shows what needs to be photographed, which angles are mandatory, and what data needs to be provided. The materials immediately reach the insurer in a standardized form.

The same model works when reporting damage. The client independently captures the car or another insured object and the damage, after which the materials are used in the subsequent settlement process.

At the same time, self-inspection does not mean that the insurer or the bank simply accepts photographs on trust. In the digital scenario, the completeness and quality of capture, shooting parameters, geolocation, and other signs of the reliability of the materials are controlled. Suspicious sessions can be forwarded for additional review by an expert.

In other words, the client becomes the performer of the inspection according to scenarios agreed upon by the bank and the insurance company.

What this changes for the client

The most important advantage of this model manifests itself precisely where the bank and the insurance company have one client.

If each company acts independently, the client has to go through similar procedures again each time.

If, however, a unified digital inspection mechanism is used within the group, processes can be structured so that the client performs the necessary actions without unnecessary repetitions and movement.

One inspection can become part of the object's history

There is another possibility that becomes especially important when an object is regularly inspected by different divisions or companies.

Information about the object gradually accumulates: initial inspection, subsequent monitoring, a new inspection when the condition changes, recording of damage.

If this data exists independently of each other, each new inspection starts practically from scratch.

If, however, inspections are linked into a single history, previous results can be used as a point of comparison for subsequent checks. VIEWAPP, for example, links inspections of one object to each other, forming a history of its condition.

For the insurance company, this can be a comparison of the condition of the object before and after an insured event.

For the bank, it is monitoring changes in the collateral during the loan term.

And if an object is simultaneously collateral and insured property, another point of intersection of processes potentially appears.

A joint technology instead of two separate processes

For a financial group, this produces a more interesting effect than simply reducing the number of site visits: related transactions are accelerated and the time between stages that depend on inspection results is reduced. If the necessary data about the object can be obtained remotely, in a standardized way, and without organizing a separate site visit, the bank and the insurance company receive inspection results faster and can continue their processes more promptly.

• The insurance company gains a tool that allows it to transfer part of typical inspections to client self-service while maintaining control over the quality of materials.
• The bank gains the same mechanism for large-scale remote monitoring of its collateral portfolio.
• The client does not have to interact with different tools each time and go through the same physical procedure just because one side of the process is handled by the bank and the other by the insurance company.

A unified mechanism is the basis for related processes

When a bank and an insurance company are part of the same group, it makes sense to combine the technological basis of inspections.

A unified digital inspection mechanism makes it possible to use the same approach to capturing an object, self-inspection, controlling the reliability of materials, and storing results — while each company continues to solve its own tasks.

Digital inspection with the VIEWAPP service within a financial group can be not a separate tool of the bank or the insurance company, but a common infrastructure for processes in which the client, the object, and data about its condition intersect.