Commercial Insurance AI Company CLARA analytics Secures $25 Million

By Noah Long ● May 26, 2020
  • CLARA analytics, a leading provider of artificial intelligence technology in the commercial insurance industry, announced it raised $25 million

CLARA analytics, a leading provider of artificial intelligence technology in the commercial insurance industry, announced it raised $25 million in Series B funding. Including this round of funding, the company has raised a total of $36.5 million.

This round of funding was led by growth equity firm Aspen Capital Group with participation from Series A lead Oak HC/FT and additional investors. And CLARA will use the funds to extend its product suite, attract critical industry talent, and expand its global reach.

CLARA analytics utilizes both structured and unstructured data to unlock relevant seeds of knowledge from medical notes, bills, and other documents and bring them into a cross-industry data lake for generating valuable predictions and other insights for claims teams. And CLARA’s suite of AI-based software — which includes CLARA claims, CLARA providers, CLARA litigation as well as its popular Medicare Set-Aside solution is used by some of the world’s leading insurers, including Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies, EMC Insurance, Amerisure, and QBE Insurance.

CLARA is rapidly growing by saving insurers and employers millions of dollars in workers’ compensation claims. And a share of those claims starts out routinely but rapidly increases in cost and severity due to unexpected medical and legal expenses. Plus CLARA’s products use artificial intelligence to accurately identify these hard-to-detect claims much earlier and more effectively than conventional techniques.

The solutions offered by CLARA optimizes medical networks and helps find the right doctors for each claim. And CLARA litigation recommends optimal litigation and settlement strategies to meaningfully reduce costs.

CLARA’s Medicare Set-Aside solution instantly compiles and updates MSA reports. And the products are designed to integrate and drive compound benefits when used together. There is one insurer using claims and providers that have seen claimants return to work 35% faster in claims processed using CLARA.

Due to COVID-19 disruptions, there has been a rising interest in CLARA’s approach. And insurers are looking for new tools and additional data to navigate rapid changes in claims, litigation, and health care delivery — which the National Council on Compensation Insurance estimates could add upwards of $81.5 billion to the cost of workers compensation claims across the 38 states on which it tracks data.

By utilizing CLARA’s cross-industry data lake and AI capabilities, organizations gain instant access to deeper data and insights, so they can make faster, more calculated decisions that adapt to today’s changing conditions. And adjusters can identify claims where medical notes don’t include a COVID diagnostic code but reference terms such as “shortness of breath” and “fever” for claimants based in locations with high infection rates and engage the right specialist on their team to ensure those claims are handled in a prescribed way.

In order to meet surging interest, CLARA will invest heavily in customer-facing sales and support teams and augment existing expertise in workers compensation. And the company is also growing its product team and expanding into additional lines of property and casualty insurance. Plus rising health care and litigation expenses are driving up claim costs and putting pressure on margins across the P&C industry. CLARA’s technology is well-suited for addressing these growing challenges.

Key Quotes:

“We are reshaping the entire claims process by analyzing millions of data points and generating meaningful and actionable insights in a matter of seconds. With this funding, we’re excited to expand our team and extend into new product areas and markets and to have Aspen Capital Group as a new investor on that journey.”

– CLARA analytics president & CEO Gary Hagmueller

“We see dozens of different ways CLARA’s AI can be applied. We are impressed with the depth of product functionality, deep customer relationships, and the demonstrable return on investment that CLARA’s solutions deliver to customers in workers compensation, and we believe CLARA is well-positioned to drive similar breakthroughs in other insurance lines of business.”

– Steven Jones, Managing Partner at Aspen Capital Group