Legacy Transformation in Insurance: Differences Across Continents

New York, NY (Oct. 21, 2014) – Insurers may succeed or fail over the next five to seven years depending on their ability to innovate the service experience they provide to agents and customers. The issue should not be how to operate the business while allowing for the dead weight of current legacy systems, but rather how eliminating them as constraints will move the business closer to its strategic goals. And it is not a question of whether these constraints must be removed, but when.

In the report Legacy Transformation in Insurance: Differences Across Continents, Celent analyses the differences among insurers in Asia-Pacific, Europe Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and North America in terms of their legacy and ecosystem transformation initiatives, investments, and programs.

Legacy transformation is a vast topic that insurers have tried to address for many years. We have heard cases where insurers are using systems that are more than 40 years old. As such these systems are often expensive to maintain, inflexible and hard to change, ill-suited for today’s consumer demands, and integrated with internal and external ecosystems using point-to-point connectors. As insurers introduce new products, distribution channels, or markets, these older systems become the greatest challenge in finding success in their new strategies. As a result, insurers begin transforming or modernizing their systems.

The report also details the results of Celent’s regional insurance CIO surveys and discusses how legacy transformation is being approached in insurance and how alternatives are being considered. Different options such as BPO, SasS, and IaaS are also discussed.

Forces Driving Legacy Transformation Thinking

“Insurers across the globe are investing in legacy transformation, but the way they do it differs among regions. However, common themes are evident,” says Karen Monks, an analyst with Celent’s Insurance practice and coauthor of the report.

“Expectations of surround/contain vs. a complete replacement with a modern system point to certain benefit areas, which helps explain why both approaches are still very much in play. And the large cost associated with these projects explains why some insurers favor incremental improvements,” adds Nicolas Michellod, a senior analyst within Celent’s Insurance practice and coauthor of the report.

For the table of contents, click here.

About Celent

Celent 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 based analysts, Celent is uniquely positioned to offer strategic advice and market insights on a global basis. Celent is a member of the Oliver Wyman Group, which is part of Marsh & McLennan Companies [NYSE: MMC].

Source: Celent