Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud targets ops automation for insurance firms

>To help insurance brokerages tie in disparate systems to manage their operations and increase employee productivity, CRM software provider Salesforce has introduced a new offering in preview, the Financial Services Cloud.

Insurance firms, carriers, and brokerages use three or more systems to service clients, according to a study conducted by Arizent Research on behalf of Salesforce that surveyed 105 insurance firms, carriers, or brokerages.

However, the study also pointed out that insurance firms or brokerages are looking to tie disparate systems into a unified system that will help them use real-time data to increase productivity and reduce expenditure.

Financial Services Cloud, which will become generally available in February 2025, aims to do just that, the CRM software provider said, adding that it combines fundamental products already offered by the company, such as the Data Cloud, to automate several facets of the business such as client management, policy servicing, and commission processing.

Explaining further, Salesforce said that the Financial Services Cloud uses Data Cloud to combine an insurance brokerage’s structured and unstructured data, such as policy details, claims history, and real-time client interactions into one platform.

“With this unified client profile, producers and account managers can now use AI to help them identify patterns and critical trends, such as gaps in coverage or potential retention risks, or where to focus efforts such as prioritizing prospects,” the company said in a statement.

Other modules of the Financial Services Cloud include Commissions Management, Employee Benefits Servicing, and Property and Casualty Industry Servicing.

While Commissions Management aims to help finance and accounts teams within insurance firms or brokerages to simplify the process of managing commission splits, Employee Benefits Servicing, as the name suggests, is expected to aid the process of maintaining and renewing employee benefits for clients.

In order to effectively manage commissions, finance, and accounts teams can key in a set of rules or create a library of rules and definitions to allow the algorithms inside the Financial Services Cloud to implement rule-based process automation.

Separately, account managers can simplify employee benefits servicing by making use of the real-time data and in-built machine learning inside the Financial Services Cloud, which in turn use algorithms to recommend potential plan adjustments or suggest additional coverage options, the company said.

In addition, Financial Services Cloud can be used to service property and casualty insurance clients as well.

The new offering can create a unified view of a client’s property details and policy information across different insurance carriers, which in turn allows brokerages to provide more personalized support.

Financial Services Cloud is available for enterprises both in monthly and annual subscriptions across various categories.

While the monthly subscription starts at $300 per month and goes up to $700 per month with varied capabilities, the yearly subscription starts at $180,000 per organization per year.