BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
AND ANALYTICS
Bob Lasher
iPartners founder and CEO
How can an insurance carrier apply business analytics to their organization?
Where there is data there is opportunity for analytics. So, virtually any area in an insurance operation
could benefit. In claims—monitoring case loads, frequency, severity, reserve development—with the
goals of reduced losses, streamlined processes, improved customer service. In underwriting —analyzing
business segments, what’s profitable, where improvements can be made. How are producers or
marketing initiatives performing?—policy counts, renewals, submissions, quotes, productivity, growth.
There are endless possibilities once you start looking inside the data.
What are the challenges/successes in developing customized business intelligence or
predictive analytic solutions?
The biggest challenge is getting the data right and the right data. And, with data typically strewn across
multiple disparate legacy systems, getting one quality version of the truth is often an issue. Once the
data integrity and multiple versions have been worked through, getting agreement on how data should
be calculated in the analytical system requires consensus. Designing an effective data model requires
experience, and user acceptance of analytics comes through use and experiencing the value firsthand.
