Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance companies today understand that in order to take advantage of opportunities in a fast-changing market, they must ensure their core systems are agile enough to enable such gymnastics. But the financial aspect of a new, modern system can be daunting: Plugging hardware and software line items into an IT budget might bring the scary reality of costs into sharp focus.
Often, however, the increase in profitability— those costs set against the hard-to-quantify growth opportunity that was previously deemed unattainable — aren’t always considered. The financial benefits of increasing a market share of the ‘right’ business simply by doing things like tailoring your products and services to better align with your customers’ needs and expectations and simplifying your products, making them easier to sell, don’t show up in an IT budget. But reaping these business benefits are nonetheless well worth the cost of a new core system and may in fact be your primary justification for the change.
For more information on the topic, check out an article published in the October 2016 issue of IASA eInterpreter that examines how insurance companies can actually have it all: technology to create an agile, responsive, evolving and profitable business while also containing costs. The article deconstructs what it really means to be “agile”, especially with respect to products, product rationalization, and precision underwriting. It also identifies what core applications companies may need to drive agility through every channel they use in an evolving, changing environment.