Evidence continues to mount that eliminating constraints imposed by legacy systems is less an operational requirement than a strategic necessity for insurance carriers. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the sessions at the 2012 Insurance-Canada Technology Conference (ICTC) will focus on growth and profitability opportunities only available with modern core technologies.
Writing in PropertyCasualty360.com, Steven Callahan, a senior consultant and practice director for the Robert E. Nolan Company, notes that most organizations have taken steps to improve efficiency, reduce cycle time, improve pricing, strengthen brand; many to the point of diminishing return. Callahan contends that: “Leadership within the industry must focus on innovative integration and leveraging of technology to significantly alter the mechanics of how insurance is designed, communicated, distributed, and serviced.” Callahan lists four areas requiring focused attention:
- nimble adaption to customized product design
- extensive, ubiquitous service options
- analytically informed operational functionality
- consolidated, holistic, and economically valued customer information
Virtually all of these elements are subjects of one or more presentations at the 2012 Insurance-Canada Technology Conference, March 5, 2012 in Toronto.
While technology is at the heart of much of this change, informed, nimble management is the key element to success. Craig Weber, CEO of Celent, will be presenting on ‘Creative Disruption in insurance’. In this session, Weber will review the change drivers and provide insight, gained from research, on how to manage discomfort associated with the change and capitalize on creative elements.
Once disruption has taken place, a new vision of integrated processes and data is required to guide the implementation of new technology. Several presenters, including Oracle, and MajescoMastek will explore the challenges and game-changing opportunities offered with modern technology.
While much attention is given to marketing and underwriting, management of claims offers both bottom and top line improvements. Industry experts and practitioners, including Guidewire and TD Meloche, Gore Mutual and Uniban will discuss results of groundbreaking work in utilizing communications and benchmarking with claims.
Flexibility is key to modern organizations. One method of achieving flexibility is by shedding the need for an insurance organization to manage its technology and applications infrastructure. Exigen will be presenting on the benefits of moving to a cloud environment to allow more agility in operations.
Modern technology – including implementation and management – is not the domain of insurance carriers alone. Several suppliers of broker management systems – including Keal and Applied Systems – will be offering techniques to better utilize operational metrics available from the systems to manage and control broker activities to focus on growth and profitability.
As usual, the conference will include an active exhibit area where practitioners, suppliers, presenters, and attendees can discuss needs and successes in an informal environment.
More details and registration information for ICTC2012 is available here.
