Insure Think

Industry associations and experts had a lot to say about the FIO report, even though there wasn’t much new information in it.

Insurers have always been at the forefront of in-house training and development, but will this carry over to tech and big data skills?

Focusing on the lack of testing makes for snappy headlines. More importantly, though, it's an indication of systemic failures in the development process.

A Swiss initiative is helping to develop women leaders.

With these elements in place, your chances of delivering on the promise of innovation are significantly increased.

How technology innovations allow brokers and carriers to do business more easily and effectively.

Lessons in agile development and data security were reinforced; mobile and cloud became as commonplace as telephones.

How to manage convergence in a global technology environment.

Tablet computers are becoming standard client computers, but there's still work to be done on the back end.

Vendor marketing tactics have escalated to a whole new level of insanity.

Microinsurance is a foothold to an underserved, untapped and fragmented market under the present business model.

Coming to an insurance business near you: predictive analytics.

Breakdowns in financial controls can be disastrous for insurers.

It’s time for insurers of all types to hop on the big data bandwagon or risk getting left behind.

At least 75 percent of CIOs in a recent survey report having a clear understanding of what their businesses need in terms of innovation — now companies need them to be able to act on that understanding.

At least 15 major insurers have dedicated Twitter accounts, including USAA, GEICO, Progressive, Allstate, Mutual of Omaha and Travelers.

Insurers understand enterprise risk more than anyone else, and that understanding should apply to their own IT operations as well.

While we can differentiate our service and products in many ways, data can still be standardized, sent, received and consumed in our respective systems without the need for re-keying.

New figures state that 59 percent of the Fortune 500 still have at least 1.6 hours of data center downtime per week, which translates to at least $8.5 million per year in losses.

Honest feedback from direct reports on managerial performance can be hard to get. But once it happens, it's like striking gold in more ways than one would think.

While most new capabilities employed by life insurers today are around mobility, focusing on better graphics and greater integration into the overall sales process, distribution innovation has been stifled.

Singapore now hosts a vibrant maturing reinsurance market with depth in expertise, capacity and reach.

A recent interview of two IT leaders from Nationwide makes it clear that insurers, which need to speed up product delivery, are particularly good candidates for DevOps.

The latest mile marker on the road to commoditization is being tested in supermarkets, malls, gas stations and auto dealerships.

A nasty new "ransomware" virus is reminding corporations that you can't educate users enough when it comes to IT security.

All too often companies end up with multiple people trying to solve components of the same problem, each with a different perspective on the relationships between the variables and what the problem really is.

It's easy to assume millennials always prefer digital channels for transactions, but such generalities don't always hold true.

There are several generational, technological distinctions that could drastically affect how your data operations are run in the future.

New technologies are creating new exposures to complex risks for agents and brokers.

Simple is better than complex is one of the primary lessons to be learned from the Obamacare website meltdown.

With their history and international reach as a foundation, deepening customer relationships is a fertile source of competitive advantage for the Lloyd’s market.

Advancements in telematics technologies, along with an 80-percent drop in hardware costs, are ratcheting up the industry’s interest in UBI. But will the payoff be there?

There are several examples of where algorithms can and should take over for human decision-making, but experience is starting to spotlight strategic decisions that can't be taken over by big data.

Why do 25 percent of CEOs, 65 percent of CFOs, 39 percent of COOs, and 41 percent of line of business heads not buy into the need for innovation?

Applications and software-defined infrastructures will likely highlight future, hopefully more successful, data consolidation projects.

The world is changing faster than ever and insurers need to be ready for what is on the horizon as well as for what's in the distance. How will personalized insurance packages, 3D, and other technologies transform your business? How can your vision and planning determine your future?

The costs of being settlers instead of pioneers goes deeper than numbers and efficiencies.

The world is changing faster than ever and insurers need to be ready for what is on the horizon as well as for what's in the distance. How will customer DIY, mobile, data & analytics, architecture & agility, and collaboration transform your business?

In a recent survey, the majority of mobile consumers said they would switch companies for a more accessible mobile channel.

A good number of C-suite execs say innovation is important, but they expect it to happen organically, as part of normal operations, according to Celent research.

The industry's absence from a pair of recent rankings serve as a reminder that in order to attract the best IT talent, insurers need to appear open to innovation and experimentation.

After a loss, some consumers who buy their policies online soon learn a hard lesson about the need and value of having an agent who is partnered with a top-notch carrier.

Insurers may have tons of data about a customer's lifestyle and requirements, but agents provide a depth of understanding that algorithms will never crack.

Change is occurring faster and faster but all you keep hearing is "BUT Insurance is Complex". The complexity should never be a barrier to innovation, but just the opposite - the driver for innovation. It's time to drop the crutch and embrace the change.

The landscape is littered with applications that were promising when they entered development, but as technologies have become "consumerized," state of the art is an even faster moving target.

Knowing file sizes, the volume of your application network, and plans for the future are on a list of tips and questions insurers should know and ask when considering a move to the cloud.

The balance of being innovative and adequately serving customers is a tricky one, but it's the latter that will make or break an insurer with this youngest demographic.

To compete in the health exchange marketplaces, health insurers are finding that effectively integrating and storing data, analyzing consumer data and precision pricing are essential.

Most enterprises with mainframe computers are quite happy with their systems, and have plans for their expansion. Still, mainframes have an achilles heel – the diminishing pool of talent that can write programs and run these machines.

Core competencies are those actions that define the uniqueness of your company and deliver the greatest value to your customers. As many insurers have found, partnering can be the best way of utilizing your capital and resources most effectively to lead to the desired outcome.

There were discussions on the subjects of automating for the sake of automation and delivering smaller projects, as well as a sense of optimism surrounding modernization efforts.

Many insurers already had counter-measures against such competitors in place, in the form of strong web-based offerings and strong agent networks.