Covid-19 Has Proven to be a Stress Test for the Insurance Industry. Data is Your Best Defense

Property and casualty insurers are in the business of helping people and companies recover from sticky and sometimes perilous situations. As policyholders look to quickly pivot with the changing realities, insurance companies need an agile response to uncertain environments.

Established insurance companies most often rely on a commercial software platform, such as Guidewire and Majesco, to run everything from claims processing to billing while employing a small team of developers and testers to keep the software up-to-date and add new features. The ability to keep this vital software current, bug-free, and secure are imperatives to ensuring customers’ needs are addressed in the quickest and most pain-free manner.

These platforms support and automate all or part of the business including:

• Core software applications for billings, claims, and policy management.

• Customer, partner, service-rep, and broker facing digital experiences.

• Access for the insurtech partner ecosystem to applications, content, and data.

Data is Key to Insurance Modernization

Core insurance software platforms function as the central source for all critical policyholder, pricing, market, rate, and financial data. Using this data is the key to modernization.

But, barriers exist that block the efficient and effective use of this valuable data including the difficulty of securing, accessing, moving, and integrating data into development and testing workflows. Slow, unsecure data impedes the ability to keep up with software enhancements and can also pose regulatory risk if policyholder information is not protected.

Here are the different ways data is used to feed critical business initiatives:

• Updating software faster and more often to provide an optimum policyholder, agent, and broker experience.

• Moving current pricing and market data into systems faster for accelerating adjudication and claims processing.

• Delivering policyholder and market data for analytics and reporting environments for an agile response to market changes and policyholder preferences.

• Sharing compliant data for expanding mobile offerings through an insurtech ecosystem.

It is important to implement a data strategy that breaks down barriers and accelerates compliant data delivery. A complete data platform combines enterprise-wide data delivery with data compliance to enable modern CI/CD workflows, ensure data privacy compliance, and transform customer experiences.

For example, the California Insurance Guarantee Association (CIGA) was able to reduce the time it takes to get data for its core software platform updates from 24 hours to just minutes by adopting a data automation platform and strategy. The company chose the Delphix Data Platform to support a host of critical business applications, including its core claims management system Guidewire and its content management, imaging, and business intelligence systems.

As a result, CIGA was able to dramatically reduce data environment refresh times, increase DBA and developer productivity, and ultimately accelerate claims processing to realize a 194% ROI after just six months. Combining a modern core software platform with data automation means that CIGA is continuously improving the policyholder experience while automatically protecting policyholder information.

Ratings Matter as Much as Rates

Research suggests an incumbent insurance business could more than double profits over 5 years by digitizing existing business. But moving to digital and staying competitive requires far more than automating a few processes. Leading companies are using data not only to improve their core operations but to launch entirely new business models.

“I believe the consumer will win and that the desire for low-cost, transparent, high-quality digital services will have to be met,” Matthew Donaldson, CEO at compliance software company BGL, tells McKinsey.

The best insurance companies today give their customers more than just a reasonable price—they provide a headache-free experience from quote to claim. Not only are policyholders looking out for top rated experiences, but brokers also want to work with companies that provide an exceptional and differentiated experience for themselves and their clients. Agents, too, favor companies that can process claims fast and efficiently.

Modernizing the infrastructure involves the combination of a leading-edge insurance software platform and a data management strategy that relies on a complete data platform for fast data availability and protection of personal information—enabling insurers to rapidly bring new innovative solutions to market and transform their business into a modern data company.

Check out this solution brief for a deeper look into how to become a digital insurer of the future.