Detailed profiles and comparisons of 16 vendors, as well as limited profiles of 11 other vendors, reveal that policy administration systems are becoming cheaper and more flexible.
There are a wide range of choices of policy administration systems among both established vendors and entrants, according to European Policy Administration Systems 2007: Life Insurance Vendors, Celent�s second report on the European vendor landscape for life insurers.
�The level of RFI activity has been low in this sector compared to general insurance,� says Catherine Stagg-Macey, senior analyst with Celent�s Insurance group and author of the report. �But we will see this change in the next three or so years. With this increased interest from insurers, prices dropping, implementations becoming quicker, and vendor options becoming more plentiful, now is indeed a very interesting time for insurers to be considering a new policy administration system.�
Entrants offer more flexible pricing models, moving away from per-module or per-user to the number of policies processed or a percentage of the premium. Technical flexibility has increased. Solutions offer multiple integration options, and many operate on more than one platform. More .NET offerings are available than there were in 2005, reflecting the general market acceptance of both technologies.
Celent�s new report is designed to help insurers understand this marketplace. The report contains detailed profiles of 16 policy administration systems and limited profiles of 11 additional systems. The report also uses Celent�s new ABCD Vendor View, which is a standard representation of a vendor marketplace designed to show at a glance the relative positions of each vendor in four categories: Advanced technology, Breadth of functionality, Customer base, and Depth of client services. Unlike a simple �four-quadrant� map, solutions in the upper right are not necessarily the best solutions�in an area as complex and idiosyncratic as policy admin, there is no one �best� for all cases. Insurers should consider which factors in breadth, technology, experience, and client service are most important to them and use the profiles and comparative tables in this report to generate their own shortlists. Only fully profiled vendors are included in the ABCD Vendor View.
The vendors with full profiles are Exaxe, Airas, Mastek, aquila, Fadata, FINEOS, Bravura Solutions, Alice Software Service, EDS SOLCORP, FJH, COR, LeanApps, Sapiens, CSC, FIS, and Percana.
Vendors with limited profiles are eBaoTech, EDS SOLCORP (Radience), IDIT Technologies, Open Square, SAP, SunGard, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wyde.
The 128-page report contains seven figures and 83 tables.
A table of contents is available online.
About Celent
Celent, LLC is a research and advisory firm dedicated to helping financial institutions formulate comprehensive business and technology strategies. Celent publishes reports identifying trends and best practices in financial services technology and conducts consulting engagements for financial institutions looking to use technology to enhance existing business processes or launch new business strategies. With a team of internationally experienced analysts, Celent is uniquely positioned to offer strategic advice and market insights on a global basis. www.celent.com
