Industry

Straight-Through Processing (STP)

Straight-through processing (STP) in insurance claims means a claim moves from first notice of loss to payment without a person handling it, because every check it needs is automated and it passes all of them. Claims that fail a check, or show signs of fraud, drop out of the straight-through path and go to an adjuster.

In this article

Which claims qualify for straight-through processing?Why does straight-through processing raise the stakes on the claims that remain?How is a straight-through processing rate measured?Key points How Hesper AI helps FAQ

Which claims qualify for straight-through processing?

A claim can only go straight through when nothing about it needs judgment. In practice that means coverage is clear on the face of the policy, the loss is low in severity and inside the adjuster's authority limit, the documents are complete and consistent, liability and injury are not in dispute, and no fraud indicator fires. Glass, small property, travel and pet claims fit that profile far more often than bodily injury, commercial liability or anything headed for litigation. The useful question for a claims leader is not what share of claims could go straight through, but which checks each claim type has to pass before it can be trusted without a review.

Why does straight-through processing raise the stakes on the claims that remain?

Every claim that resolves straight through is one an adjuster no longer reads. That is the point, and it is also the risk: the claims left in the manual queue are, by construction, the ones that failed a check, so the queue gets harder even as it gets shorter. A program tuned too loosely pays claims it should have questioned; one tuned too tightly sends clean claims to people and saves little. The money at stake is large either way. In the NAIC's 2025 annual results for the US property and casualty industry, loss adjustment expense ran at 15.6% of losses incurred.

How is a straight-through processing rate measured?

The straight-through processing rate is the share of claims closed with no human touch between first notice of loss and payment. On its own it is a misleading number, because it rewards paying claims quickly whether or not they should have been paid. Track it alongside the reopen rate, post-payment recoveries, audit findings on a sample of straight-through claims, and the cycle time of the claims that did not qualify. For a cycle-time reference point, J.D. Power's 2026 US property claims study found an average of 40.7 days from first notice of loss to final payment.

Key points

A claim handled from first notice of loss to payment with no person touching it
Works only when every check the claim needs is automated and passes
Fits low-severity, clear-coverage claims; rarely bodily injury or litigated files
Makes the manual queue harder: what remains is what failed a check
Measure it with reopen rates and audits, not the STP rate alone

How Hesper AI helps

Hesper AI's agents run the checks that decide whether a claim can resolve straight through: the policy read against the loss, document and identity verification, and fraud screening. Clean claims close without a review. Claims that fail a check get an investigation-grade workup with the evidence attached, and a licensed adjuster makes every decision that is a decision.

Related glossary terms

Claims Triage First Notice of Loss (FNOL)Claims Leakage Claims Adjuster

Frequently asked questions

Straight-through processing is when a claim goes from first notice of loss to payment without a person handling it. It is possible only when every check the claim needs, such as coverage, documents, identity and fraud screening, is automated and the claim passes all of them. Anything that fails a check goes to an adjuster.

Mostly. Touchless and no-touch are marketing terms for the same idea: a claim that reaches payment without a person handling it. Straight-through processing is the operational term, and it makes clearer that the claim passed a fixed set of automated checks rather than skipping them.

High-volume, low-severity lines with clear coverage and standard documents: auto glass, small property, travel, pet and simple first-party claims. Bodily injury, commercial liability, workers' compensation with disputed compensability, and claims with attorney involvement rarely qualify, because they need judgment that a fixed check cannot supply.

It can, if fraud screening is not one of the checks a claim must pass. A claim that goes straight through is never read by a person, so whatever the checks miss gets paid. The safer design runs document, identity and fraud checks on every claim before it can skip review, and sends anything that fails to an investigation rather than a backlog.

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