Insurance Networking News - Strategies 2011

larry stern

Vice President, aQs, Inc.

How are policy administration systems addressing carriers speed-to-market concerns? How has the technology advanced to provide faster product development?

powerful software applications are helping insurers overcome the challenges of product design and development. modeling tools permit insurers to test and integrate key aspects of risk selection and pricing across all lines, including flexible pricing modifications and streamlined methods of applying rates and factors. insurance content can be imported and updated through seamless integration with bureaus, such as iso, to greatly reduce manual work. plus, product configuration solutions make it easy to select from various parameters, such as policy type, coverage, limits, loss costs, and forms, to define new product attributes. business analysts can then build, modify, and maintain insurance products without programming, so carriers can get innovative products to market quickly.

What are the newest features and capabilities of policy administration systems and how can carriers benefit from them?

the dominant trend in policy administration systems is increased integration with technology and data that resides outside of the carrier. the goal for companies and agents is to streamline processes and improve ease of doing business. companies are combining support of portals, upload and download with agency management systems, comparative raters, and their own web solutions to offer agents a variety of ways to interact with them. carriers are also providing extensive self-service technologies to policyholders. additionally, as information proliferates, companies are finding new ways to integrate individual, company, and risk data into their processes. rules engines and expert systems enable the effective use of this data to make better decisions and facilitate low-touch and no-touch processing.

contAct informAtion
aQs, inc.
1325 Walnut ridge dr., Hartland, Wi 53029-8894
817.845.6141 | aqssolutions.com
larry.stern@aqssolutions.com

the goal for companies and agents is to streamline processes and improve ease of doing business.

— larry stern aQs, inc.

;ese days, questions arise not so much about whether to undertake such a project but more often about how to implement it. Rip and replace? Build upon legacy systems? Buy versus build? ;en there are the various end-to-end and best-of-breed options. Carriers have more choices than ever as they carefully consider the risks and opportunities associated with prospective solutions.

A new business line or one desiring the most changes in design, underwriting, is a good candidate for first phase.

— steVe FranKlin Wyde

steVe FranKlin Vice President, us operations, wyde

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?

several factors influence this choice, including cost justification, specific business requirements, available implementation and support staff. best-of-breed does not make sense if the number of supported interfaces outweighs the benefits of improving the overall solution. the support costs will escalate annually as each best-of-breed component requires updates and maintenance fixes. carriers today require even tighter connection of premium, costs, claims, and overhead data to better manage and incent specific lines of business. bob fosters continued silos of data and operational information that become difficult to connect and will probably produce an inconsistent overall workflow process.

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?

it’s a myth that management objectives can only be effectively monitored by having separate systems for specific lines of business. a proven single pas solution will support integrated information across the enterprise as well as allow for selective management by line of business. (see our article in this section regarding flexibility.) a single system can be deployed in phases based on distribution channels, line of business, or both. a new business line or one desiring the most changes in design, underwriting, is a good candidate for first phase. staff will view the install as beneficial in preparing for other coming changes.