It's time for an insurance technology revolution
The insurance technology game has changed. For decades, P&C insurance companies used powerful back office technology to more efficiently manage policy processing, billing administration, and claims handling. But today, it’s the consumer that is driving the technology change.
Today, policyholders are used to banking from their phones, shopping online, and getting answers to their questions instantly from search engines.
The Internet has permanently changed how customers also expect to interact with their agent and insurance carrier. They want instant quotes to flexible plans that meet their ever-changing needs. They want to edit their billing information from wherever they want, whenever they want, and from the device they want. And when there’s a claim, they expect straight-through processing because they don’t have any patience for delays.
To survive in this new customer-driven paradigm, P&C insurance companies need to quickly roll out new products that make life easy on the agency while delighting their customers. But the old P&C insurance platforms simply can’t deliver, and a major technology change isn’t easy when you’re running on razor thin margins.
It’s time for an insurance technology revolution.
"Policy holders want access to everything they’ve got."
Standing out in a hyper-competitive market
Speed matters when it comes to rate changes and new features. Insurance products are hyper-competitive so carriers need to quickly jump on new market opportunities as they arise and roll those products out before the competition beats you to the punch.
The challenge for most insurance companies is that implementing product changes usually requires a major IT initiative that takes too much time and money on old systems. Compounding the problem, programmers and IT pros want to develop marketable skills on the latest technology and don’t want to work on those older systems. The result is a scarce and expensive talent pool that takes too long to implement product changes.
If your competitors are launching new products while you’re still stuck in development, you’re losing customers.
Operational inefficiencies
Insurance companies run lean so they must be efficient. That means getting the most from their technology and their people.
The challenge, however, is that being efficient while adapting to an ever-changing market is nearly impossible. That’s because, for most insurance companies, the IT staff that runs their old mainframe-based systems are the same resources required to implement system changes. That means technology changes require additional IT staff and cut right into the bottom line.
The irony is that while old technology is a major part of the problem, tight margins and limited IT resources prevent carriers from implementing the new technology that could dramatically improve efficiency.
New world of customer expectations
Meeting the needs of customers is harder than ever before. It’s not enough to have a competitive insurance product at competitive rates. They want access to everything they’ve got from anywhere they want, at any time they want, and from any device they want.
Today’s customers see their policy and a rate as just part of the product. To them, they see the entire insurance experience as part of the product. That includes how quickly their agent can give them a quote and how clearly they can explain the policy. It includes access to all of their information the way they want it. And it includes swift and simple process handling.
But for most carriers, meeting these new customer expectations is impossible on their legacy systems.
Insurance Automation... how can Insuresoft help?
P&C insurers face challenges like never before. They need to quickly respond to market opportunities and compliance requirements while operating on razor thin margins. And they must do this while also exceeding the new expectations of a mobile tech-savvy client base. That’s no small feat. Until now.
Insuresoft understands the technology challenges P&C insurers face and we’ve developed a suite of products to help. Insuresoft’s Diamond Suite allows you to manage your business your way. Because it’s a single solution with many modules, you can start by solving your biggest challenges first and then grow into the system for years to come. To learn more about the Insuresoft Diamond Suite, visit our Products page.
