At the Guidewire Connections 2015 Conference, Guidewire Software®, (NYSE: GWRE), a provider of software products to Property/Casualty insurers, announced Guidewire Digital Portals™ 4.0 which provides significant functional and usability enhancements to its line of policyholder and agent/broker portals. Policyholders gain the ability to make self-service policy changes and file and track claims in addition to policy and billing self-service available previously, all within a single Account Management Portal. Similarly, the 4.0 release of Guidewire Gateway Portal for AgentsTM allows agents and brokers to submit new business and fully service their customers within a single portal designed specifically for the way agents/brokers would like to do business. The Digital Portals framework, which underlies all Guidewire portals, has been enhanced with additional flexibility and usability features, improving an insurer’s ability to create distinctive user experiences while retaining the cost advantage of leveraging their core system investment without duplication. Guidewire Digital Portals 4.0 begins shipping globally this month.
Insurer interaction with customers, brokers, agents, and vendors where and when it’s most convenient – online, on their mobile devices, or through the call center, is today’s operational necessity. These critical stakeholder groups expect a seamless experience across channels to support digital sales, service, and claims capabilities.
“Speed to business value is rapidly becoming the #1 driver of competitive advantage. Being able to respond to customer and distributor service requirements via an integrated portal is imperative and not a capability that can be pushed down the road,” said CEB TowerGroup Senior Executive Advisor, Karen Pauli. “Having digital portal capabilities within an administration suite, means insurers will be able to quickly deliver business value in an integrated and seamless fashion. Guidewire’s announcement of Digital Portals 4.0 has come at a critical time in insurer’s journey to innovate and differentiate.”
Guidewire Digital Portals extend the capabilities of Guidewire InsuranceSuite™, empowering policyholders, and insurance agents and brokers to not only view but transact in a self-serve mode in a browser, tablet, or on a mobile device. Designed as a series of role-based, easy-to-use portals, Guidewire Digital Portals reuse product rules, business rules, validation rules, and integrations already defined in InsuranceSuite. This single-source-of-truth and single-source-of-change approach for core systems and portals achieves faster speed to market and lower total cost of ownership for the insurer and enables a seamless omni-channel experience for their customers.
Key insurer benefits of Digital Portals 4.0 include:
Agent Empowerment – Provides full informational and transactional needs of insurance agents and brokers across policy, billing, and claims with much improved and intuitive self-service design and adds the international features already available in our policyholder portals to support agents and brokers in all of our global markets;
Policyholder Empowerment – Adds easy-to-use self-service policy change quote and issuance capability for the most common auto policy changes and integrates self-service claim functionality previously available in the Claim Portal for Policyholders into the Account Management Portal to provide a single entry point for policyholder account, policy, billing and claims self-service;
Improved Usability and Flexibility - Adds user interface improvements, additional mobile responsive and adaptive features, and an updated validation framework to allow more granular control over how rules can be implemented in the portals.
“We are excited to take a big step forward in helping our customers adapt and succeed in the fast changing world of Digital,” said Ayan Sarkar, business owner, Digital, Guidewire Software. “Insurers want to drive more meaningful digital interactions with customers, agents and employees across the insurance lifecycle. Their ability to do so will increasingly be a driver of how well they can attract, engage and retain customers. We are helping our customers exceed these expectations by providing digital engagement solutions that work in concert with the core processing and data analytics parts of the Guidewire platform.”
Guidewire’s Digital portfolio has continuously built momentum since its launch, with more than 30 customers in nine countries licensing one or more of the Guidewire Digital Portals™ products. Seven of these customers are live in production. Guidewire’s Digital Portals product line includes:
Gateway Portal for Agents — Increase your agent-driven business by providing full transactional capabilities and improving collaboration and transparency.
Quote and Buy Portal — Grow your direct business by attracting and converting the next generation insurance buyer.
Account Management Portal — Increase customer satisfaction and reduce customer-service costs by empowering policyholder self-service.
Claim Portal — Expedite claims with easy claim reporting, coverage verification, and claim status transparency. Communicate with vendors during repairs avoiding delays and ensuring proper work authorizations.
About Guidewire Digital Portals
Guidewire Digital Portals™ is a portfolio of portals that allow insurers to expose Guidewire InsuranceSuite™ functionality to external stakeholders such as policyholders, agents/brokers, and vendors through the web and mobile devices. Insurers can extend the value of their Guidewire core system investment to drive new business, increase operational efficiency, and improve customer service through digital channels. Each individual product has been developed to meet a targeted need for a specific user group (e.g. Quote and Buy for Policyholders). The underlying architecture of the products has been designed to directly leverage InsuranceSuite functionality without duplication, enabling quick response to market needs and lowering total cost of ownership, all on a future ready technology.