Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), a provider of software products to Property/Casualty (P/C) insurers, today announced its new data management and business intelligence solutions, Guidewire DataHub™ and Guidewire InfoCenter™ based on technology acquired from Millbrook1. Together, these products position Guidewire to help P/C insurers accelerate legacy system replacement, maximize the value and insight of core system transformation, and support enterprise-wide data management and business intelligence strategies.
“As insurers continue to modernize their core operating systems, Celent sees an increasing emphasis on combining the replacement of legacy systems with data and analytics initiatives. To gain a competitive advantage, insurers need an agile modern system that integrates analytics-driven best practices,” said Donald Light, director, Property/Casualty Practice Americas at Celent. “Insurers need a consistent source of truth across their enterprise and Guidewire’s solutions will help them address that need in a well architected way.”
Guidewire DataHub™ is an operational data store that unifies, standardizes, and stores data from the typical patchwork of an insurer’s systems as well as from external sources. This provides the single source of truth to feed core systems, business intelligence solutions, and downstream systems such as general ledger, regulatory, and tax reporting. DataHub decouples data consumption from data production, thus insulating downstream data consumers from changes in the behavior and configuration of upstream data producers. With DataHub, insurers can more easily retire legacy systems, ensure business continuity during core system transformation, and add new applications in the future.
“Today’s proliferation of data and intensified industry competition has increased the importance of business insight as a competitive differentiator for insurers. Yet our research indicates that P/C insurers see data accessibility and legacy systems as two of the top inhibitors to fully capitalizing on the power of business intelligence and analytics,” said Mark Breading, partner, Strategy Meets Action. “Guidewire is meeting this need at a reduced risk by providing insurers a BI foundation based on a proven data model aligned with their core systems.”
Guidewire InfoCenter™ is a business intelligence warehouse optimized for the Property/Casualty industry to provide information in easy to use formats for business intelligence, analysis, and enhanced decision making. Pre-integration with Guidewire products significantly reduces implementation time, risk and maintenance overhead, allowing customers to focus on configuration for their unique needs. It is compatible with a variety of industry-standard business intelligence tools.
DataHub and InfoCenter are based on Millbrook data models and products which have been optimized and proven over 16 years in the P/C industry. Guidewire DataHub and Guidewire InfoCenter are immediately available to any P/C insurer in the U.S. and Canada either integrated with Guidewire PolicyCenter® or Guidewire ClaimCenter® or stand-alone within non-Guidewire core system environments.
“Our collaboration with insurers over the past 10 years led to a clear vision for how we can unite core system replacement with enterprise data management and business intelligence. Guidewire core systems are increasingly surrounded by pre-integrated smart solutions that help insurers even more deeply understand and fine-tune their operations,” said Ken Branson, director, Product Strategy and Guidewire Software co-founder.
“We are offering a path for insurers to create a central data integration hub that unlocks data from individual system siloes and reduces the maintenance burden from complex point-to-point integrations and data links,” said Jack Plunkett, senior field consulting director, Guidewire Software and co-founder of Millbrook. “Our approach creates a BI foundation for embedding advanced business intelligence into the day-to-day workflows of insurance professionals.”