The unique nature of the insurance vertical lends itself to complex technologies to support it. In particular, portfolio management and accounting (portfolio systems), are the subject of the most recent
Aite Group, a Boston research firm, notes that many insurers tend are large entities working in a global environment with each global location having its own accounting requirements, meaning that the portfolio systems supporting them must offer multi-basis accounting.
Multiple business lines and product groups also add complexity to insurance operations, and therefore require a structured chart of accounts. The portfolio system must provide a hierarchy structure to support insurance firms seeking to view, analyze, and report on various segmentations of the business by location, region, legal entity, product or portfolio, the report says.
“Insurance companies have an array of portfolio-systems products to choose from,” says Denise Valentine, senior analyst with Aite Group and author of the report. “While the overall market environment has been relatively weak for core infrastructure replacement over the past two years, vendors have had no choice but to bide their time awaiting a market recovery. For those vendors in a position to do so, it has been a time of solution enhancement; many have developed a full roadmap and are fast at work. Though firms have a tendency to stick with the same vendors year after year, now might be the time to look at competitors’ offerings.”
The report profiles and compares products from vendors such as
