ross orrett
President, Chief executive officer, Camilion solutions
A single solution
across all lines
provides consistency
and lowers maintenance costs.
cHUcK FilliZola
Vice President, Chief strategy officer, CsC
— ross orrett
camilion solutions
Experts note that successful implemen- tation hinges on a carrier’s ability to align its upgrade or replacement with its strategic business objectives. But many other factors matter, too. On the following pages, leading industry insiders explore key questions about policy administration modernization and share their thoughts on policy administration issues of the day. PRIORITY STATUS Policy admin was identified as one of U.S. insurers’ top three priorities by New York-based research firm Novarica in its report, “Insurance Information Technology 2011: Across the Core Systems Map.”
in terms of the rip/replace discussion, what
type of advice would you offer a carrier with
separate policy admin systems that support
separate lines of business? is a single solution
the answer? if so, how should they approach
and successfully embrace this challenge?
a single solution across all lines provides consistency
and lowers maintenance costs. However, technologically
speaking, an enterprise-wide rip and replace is risky
and has significant change management considerations.
to mitigate those concerns, start by moving product
data line by line to a central repository. this will provide
immediate benefits in terms of speed to market,
regulatory compliance, and analytics. then replace
the front-end systems over time to take advantage of
modern user interfaces, standard integrations, and
configurable processes.
How are policy administration systems addressing
carrier’s speed-to-market concerns? How
has the technology advanced to provide faster
product development?
to achieve speed to market, carriers need to choose
a policy administration solution that is modern, flexible
and configurable, and provides pre-built iso product
lines. pre-built iso product lines provide a jump-start
for product development, enabling carriers to start with
an industry-standard base and focus on configuring
their own custom requirements. in the future, the most
successful carriers will be those that switch from iso’s
paper circular process to solutions that automatically
import iso electronic rating content. modern, flexible
and configurable technology ensures that all elements
of an insurance product—rates, rules, forms and stat
codes—can be easily created, modified and reused
as carriers evolve their offerings. the combination of
pre-built product lines and the tools to easily manage
product changes over time is a significant technology
advancement that helps carriers achieve both speed and
quality in the market.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of
a best-of-breed versus an end-to-end solution?
When does it make sense for a carrier to choose
one over the other?
an end-to-end system solution shares reference data,
processes and services. this can greatly reduce the time
and cost of personalization, setup, installation and operation.
However, project delays or failures are more common.
With a best-of-breed solution, the total risk is spread
out incrementally over shorter periods, and the risk to
the balance sheet is reduced. in addition, best-of-breed
typically offers leading features. However, maintaining
qualified resources to support the numerous interface
points and vendor releases in a best-of-breed
environment is a challenge.
in either case, vendor experience is critical; any
vendor without a long track record of successful
implementations will struggle to deliver on the promise
of either a best-of-breed solution, or a well integrated
end-to-end solution.
How are policy administration systems addressing
carriers’ speed-to-market concerns? How has
the technology advanced to provide faster product
development?
a key goal of product managers is to update their
product rules, rates and forms without incurring the
time and expense of formal requirements and enduring
lengthy waits in the it queue. to do this, vendors are
aggressively developing configuration tools that enable
non-technical staff to configure, model, copy, save, and
test product rate, rule, form, and screen changes—all
with the drag-and-drop ease of a consistent user-friendly interface, and without programming. modern
system designs and technologies make these efforts
possible, by separating business rules, rating algorithms
and screen logic from system functions and the
underlying database. this, in turn, allows for the use of a
dedicated—best-of-breed configurator that can operate
across all core insurance products and systems.
contAct informAtion
camilion solutions,123 commerce Valley dr. e, 6th Floor
markham, ontario canada l3t 7W8
1.866.226.4546 | camilion.com | info@camilion.com
modern system designs
and technologies make
these efforts possible,
by separating business
rules, rating algorithms
and screen logic from
system functions and
the underlying database.
— cHUcK FilliZola
csc
contAct informAtion
to discuss your options with one of csc’s policy
admin experts, or to find out more about our
policy administration solutions, call 800.345.7672
or visit www.csc.com/policyadmin.
