form has to offer and develop more gripping user in-
terfaces?”
One way around the scarcity issue may be emerging
in new code-aggregating software platforms, such as the
offering from Kony, which enables developers to estab-
lish a single code base that can be used to develop apps
for all platforms. In this way, developers won’t have to
start from scratch when developing the same app for,
say, iOS and Android. Yet, faster app development may
not be an unalloyed good. According to a recent assess-
ment by Gartner, mobile application development proj-
ects will outnumber traditional projects by a ratio of 4: 1
by 2015. Thus, some worry that in the rush to develop
apps, insurers have shoved architectural and security
concerns to the back burner and may lack the basic se-
curity and integration skills necessary to successfully
expose internal applications to mobile devices. While
service-oriented architectures are well-established in
the area of Web service, they remain largely absent for
mobile applications. “We see a lot of carriers becoming
an app factory,” says Tom Kavanaugh, director at PwC.
“They are not putting enough thought into the role mo-
bile plays in their business model.”
Field agrees that data integration complexities be-
tween mobile and enterprise applications are a key
challenge. “How do you make your data available to a
mobile platform?” he says. “We need to take a look at
how we are architecting our data and the different tools
that operate on top, moving and securing the data.”
Even with these issues put to rest, a more existential
one rears its head—what to develop and for whom? Ka-
vanaugh says the answer to the question of for whom to
develop will likely vary by line of business. “P&C insur-
ers are farther out front on consumer-facing apps while
life insurers are focusing their efforts more on the pro-
ducer,” he says.
In the case of customer-facing mobile applications,
many of the earliest examples were minimalist, featuring bare-bones functionality that enabled a user to
perform a singular function, such as look up the value
of an annuity. Increasingly, insurers are developing
apps that seek to replicate or even surpass the transactional functionality found on their website. Indeed,
the geo-location and sensor capability of the common
smartphone opens up new avenues for app developers
to increase customer satisfaction. Considering what a
fickle mistress consumer satisfaction is, developers may
need all the tools in the toolbox. Many a customer will
download an app, use it once, then ignore it or jettison
it entirely. To combat this, developers are endeavoring
to craft more compelling user experiences. One way to
make an app stand out is to introduce “gamification” to
engage the user and encourage return visits. Even so,
we may be waiting a while for an insurance app as addictive as Angry Birds.
Kavanaugh is more optimistic about mobile applica-
tions on the producer end. “Retirement planning is a
new space and that interaction paradigm is yet to be
fully defined, so mobile can play a tremendous role in
paving the way,” he says. “Consumers are beginning to
digest information in a much more visual manner and
devices such as tablets are predicated on visual col-
laboration. When salespeople can visualize decisioning
logic and the tradeoffs with things like slider bars, it’s
just vastly more impactful. So, there is quite a potential
for a transformative experience.”
BEYOND THE APP
While pushing out new apps or enabling extant business
processes to be executed remotely may add instant value, a more consummate mobile strategy beckons. What
if mobility could significantly alter those processes or
even redefine the value proposition of insurance itself?
Many see the raw data that insurers can derive from
remote devices as the true game changer. Telematics,
which pairs mobile technologies with analytic functions, is becoming increasingly common in personal
lines auto, with carriers such as Progressive, Allstate and
State Farm already offering usage-based or pay-as-you-drive policies. Proponents say the use of data derived
from telematics also can be a boon to underwriting.
“We have always known historical data and always
tried to predict what was going to happen and set our
programs accordingly, but we never had the actual in-
formation about what was going on in the vehicles and
what was driving those behaviors,” says Jim Noble,
line of business director – Motor Fleet, Zurich Services
Corp. “Telematics completes the risk portrait for us
and enables us to know what’s happening inside the
vehicle. This is the evolution that insurance compa-
nies have been looking to for quite some time.”
Noble also sees telematics having an impact on
claims by enabling a much more granular analysis of
individual claims. “The more information we have
about what was going on at the exact time of the crash
the better we can handle the claim,” he says. “Telemat-
ics itself is a very important area for how the complex-
ion of the claims process will look in the future.”
Yet mobile technologies may foster even more
revolutionary changes. For example, as technologies
such as mobile vehicle-to-vehicle communications
mature, the possibility of a “crash-free” culture is pos-
sible. Longer term, Noble says mobile technology may
usher in a more profound shift for insurers: moving
from compensating insureds for accidents to actively
helping prevent them. “The reason we do this is to
help drive the risk out of the business,” he says. “If you
look at where we are with in-vehicle technology today,
we are just skimming the surface.”
Nor is this mobile vision by any means confined to
auto insurance. A burgeoning legion of network de-
vices attached to everything from bridges to buildings
will provide insurers with vast amounts of data to assess
and mitigate risk. Dubbed the Internet of Things, this
galaxy of network-connected-devices will number 15
billion by 2015, according to the annual Visual Network-
Another lArge mobility chAllenge
revolves around giving employees access to
corporate networks and desktop applications via
mobile devices. While the business logic for this is
sound, as more employees seek access via their own
personal mobile devices, a trend known as “bring
your own device” (BYOD) introduces new management and security issues. Indeed, The 2011 ISACA I T
Risk/Reward Barometer found that 58 percent of
the 712 U. S. information security and IT audit
professionals surveyed view mobile devices owned
by employees as posing the greatest risk. By
comparison, 33 percent viewed work-supplied
smartphones as posing the greatest risk.
While many good arguments exist for and
against employees storing company data locally on
their handsets, if carriers opt against remote
storage, a secure tunnel that provides access to
enterprise data is a must. Here, insurers may be able
to leverage existing investments in virtual desktops
and cloud computing. “Virtualization can provide
great speed to delivery capability,” says Kevin Field,
VP & CIO Hub International.
To Bring or
Not to Bring
ing Index Forecast from Cisco. For example, a remote
sensor included as part of a homeowners policy could
help monitor pipes for leakage and freezing and stop a
claim before it starts. Likewise, RFID-tagged construc-
tion equipment could help alert police while a theft is
in progress (see A&A page 26). “Telematics is a huge
undiscovered country in property claims as well,” says
Richard Pankhurst, a director in the insurance adviso-
ry practice at PwC. “We speak of mostly automobiles,
but from a combined ratio perspective, there is a more
compelling business need in property.”
Health insurers too, envision novel uses for mobil-
ity in areas such as patient monitoring. Devices such
as the Jawbone Up, which pairs a wrist-worn device
with a mobile app to measure patient health, could aid
insurers by encouraging better adherence to prescrip-
tion drug regimens, which could ultimately reduce
health care claims cost.
Thus insurers, irrespective of line of business, find
themselves in a similar place. They need to weigh the
immediate, tactical needs for mobile applications today while eyeing the technology’s potential to radically reshape business processes going forward. “
Insurers need to go through a strategic exercise not only
about the role mobility today but also three, five and
10 years down the line,” Kavanaugh says. “You need to
prioritize where the opportunities are.”
