With the rapid changes in technology-enabled capabilities, just keeping tabs on what has become “table stakes” or the “new normal” for Life/Annuity/Benefits insurers has become a full-time job.
Last month Novarica released its Benchmarking the “New Normal”: 50 Advanced Capabilities for Life/Annuity/Benefits Insurers” report, which includes a list of 50 advanced capabilities across nine functional and strategic areas, survey data from 20 CIOs, and a new benchmarking tool designed to help insurers track their own progress in deploying advanced capabilities.
Deployment of these 50 advanced capabilities is uneven today, but some of the capabilities that insurers are focusing on include:
- Product Development: Analytics-driven product design
- Marketing: Responsive social media engagement with distributors and/or policyholders
- Distribution: Quick quote or appetite indication with minimal data entry
- Underwriting: Predictive scoring based on models leveraging internal and third-party data
- Customer Engagement: Mobile app to view relationship details, balances, key documents, etc.
- Billing: Analytics to prevent premium leakage
- Claims: Triaged straight-through-processing
- Analytics: Use of big data tools to mine enterprise data effectively (Hadoop, NoSQL, etc)
- Collaboration and Innovation: Enterprise collaboration that’s as easy to use as consumer-grade technology like GoogleDocs or Dropbox
One thing most of these advanced capabilities have in common is that they are being driven by a combination of five elements: analytics, data, digital channels, modern applications, and innovative business practices.
Five Elements of Advanced Capabilities in Insurance
Creating an exhaustive list of all the advanced technologically-enabled capabilities that could be delivered by insurer CIOs would be exhausting indeed. For the purpose of this report and the Novarica New Normal Benchmark tool, we have selected 50 capabilities spread across nine different areas that are closely related to the core business of insurance: product development, marketing, distribution, underwriting, customer service, billing, claims, analytics, and collaboration and innovation. The 50 capabilities on the list were chosen by Novarica’s senior team of industry experts in active conversation with dozens of members of our
While the list is admittedly subjective, we believe this list provides a good sampling of the most important advanced technologies in play for insurers today. In our view, these 50 capabilities are becoming the “new normal” for insurers.
This blog entry has been republished with permission.
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