Insure Think

There's a lot of interest in creating CDO positions, but what will be their main areas of responsibility?

Sam Medina points out the differences between updating the Finance & Accounting organization functions and truly modernizing and transforming F&A across all functions and geographies.

Having driven nearly 700,000 autonomous miles, Google’s self-driving car now is taking on the hazards of city driving.

Event data recorders are now in 91 percent of all vehicles, but unlike telematics devices, they record data without owners' consent.

AXA and other insurers have an opportunity to increase their value to their customers in the years to come.

Analytics solutions are intended not only to support a set of predefined reports, extracts and queries, but also should present a coherent view of information for analysis.

Organizations should seek to innovate by combining the best from inside and outside the organization.

Insurers know that growth in revenues, profits and market share is dependent on their ability to attract and retain customers. In a highly competitive arena this means taking customers from competitors in the mature markets, and getting on top of the hill first in the emerging markets. They know that consumers are more informed, have access to more powerful devices, are more connected and can make formal and informal comparisons of products and services. They are therefore more demanding than consumers of the past. Insurers also know that customers will pay for value. Leading global insurers know how to create differentiating, lifetime value-adding propositions. In most cases, what separates the leaders from the rest of insurers is that the leaders have already shifted from being inwardly-focused to being customer-focused. They have engaged in some form of transformational thinking. (For a good definition of transformational thinking vs. legacy thinking, see my first blog.)

Here's what could have kept the initial, disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act portal from being so disastrous.

PolicyWriter, by Adaptik Corp., is like no other P&C policy administration solution on the market – and we’re happy to prove it. Today’s Adaptik Blog entry highlights the software’s unique upgrade methodology. Want to read more about what makes PolicyWriter different? Click here.

The industry has a long way to go, with many obstacles to digitization. But the potential payoffs make it worth the work.

How information is presented to business users directly impacts how easily and efficiently they can answer their analytical questions.

All the great ideas already have been taken, right?

P&C insurers face profitability pressures that rate hikes alone likely will not relieve.

The power partnership has the potential to transform and redefine AXA's customer experience, customer engagement, digital presence and growth potential to levels not yet seen in insurance.

Cloud vendors aren’t being challenged enough at the start of engagements.

From the portal rollout chaos to confusion and politicking, insurance CIOs can draw some important lessons from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ tenure.

Insurance claims processing is still categorized by some insurers as “if it’s not broken don’t fix it.” Some have taken steps to make incremental changes to their existing claims processes and systems by applying Lean process methods, and introducing data mining and predictive analytics. Although for the most part the results have been positive, these small enhancements led to small benefits.

Today’s leading P&C carriers deal with huge numbers of policies, online transactions and batch transactions – and the volume is always growing. That means a legacy policy administration system that works today might not be adequate tomorrow. High-performance, scalable policy admin solutions are no longer “nice to have.” They’re absolutely essential – for every P&C carrier, everywhere.

The bug is believed to affect security of more than 50 percent of the Internet.

A survey finds that mobile devices may soon dominate computing in financial services organizations.

Change in insurance is slow, but the race toward modernization has begun.

Transformational thinking isn’t just about ‘intelligent thoughts’. It is about converting transformational concepts into practical steps that will accomplish real enterprise transformations. (For a good definition of transformational thinking vs. legacy thinking, see my first blog.) This week we focus on how insurance marketing efforts have to transform to add value.

Allstate pursues “synchronized thinking” toward technology.

Industry executives share their perspectives in a recent survey.

Shares typically are seen more as helpful information from a friend than as brand messages.

Simpler, faster, better and cheaper — four words that may reshape insurance systems.

As the digital revolution continues to progress, insurers must embrace and harness the power of technology.

There are a range of application types that probably should be moved to the cloud simply because they are commoditized, routine functions that are best handled by someone else.

IT will be required to develop the robust systems and data environment to perform and analyze risk metrics in tight time frames. There's a regulatory train coming, and IT needs to stay ahead of it.

An examination of case studies point to a handful of paths insurers can take toward innovation.

ROI is often too difficult to explain in dry techie terms.

Without adequate storage, there is no big data.

For many, modernize or die is the rallying cry. But, what are the real results?

Working together, agents and carriers can realize data validation, faster turnaround, no month-end reporting and other straight-through processing benefits.

For many insurers, the road seems to begin with beefing up their data analytics.

Spring is almost here. It is natural for insurers to focus on growth. In the past, the growth cycle was fueled by new products, an expansion of agencies or reaching new geographies. Today’s growth fuel flows in the opposite direction – from consumer demand, through the product channels and into product development. The technological wave that has fostered channel development is improving insurer response time and promoting growth – if insurers are willing to think transformationally. (For a good definition of transformational thinking vs. legacy thinking, see my first blog.)

Does the rise of virtual work mean more stress and overwork?

Advanced Web architecture is particularly crucial in the insurance industry given the potential for enhanced customer self-service.

The data deluge presents many challenges, from the purely technical to process- and change-management issues to outright cultural and sociological impacts.

Esurance's post-Super Bowl commercial polarizes pundits.

One out of five companies now consider themselves to be mobile enterprises. Here's how they did it.

All companies should have adequate controls that minimize points of entry to their private information.

The ticker tape, invented by Thomas Edison at the age of 22, should have been a sign to all other industries. Investors would do anything to keep information and money flowing…including keeping their technology up to date. One would think that an insurer’s desire to reduce risk and hold onto reserves would also steer them down the road toward cutting-edge information technologies.

Insurers should never lose sight of the essential principles that are important to managing the business.

Technology is an increasingly important motivator for strategic acquisitions in the insurance industry.

The tools and methodologies for cloud security are readily available.

While agents and carriers have significantly improved the flow of data, carriers that opened a path for clients to log directly into their proprietary websites presents a problem.

Across the industry, substantial differences exist in claims management processes, and many insurers could realize significant benefits by applying new techniques and technologies.

With the opportunities of varied distribution channels, insurers are starting to be much more granular in their view of the customers.

Over the past year, MetLife has made advancements in using data to find IT talent and create a 360-degree view of its customers.

Data analytics is a potent tool for bolstering carriers' relationships with agent networks.