This publish is a part of a sequence sponsored by AgentSync.
At this time’s insurance coverage companies depend on a mean of 5.7 to 11.9 totally different expertise platforms for day-to-day operations, relying on their complete income. For giant-scale carriers managing a number of companies and their downstream producers, it’s possible that quantity is even larger. Whereas this degree of digital innovation represents a constructive change within the insurance coverage trade’s means to supply fashionable experiences to its shoppers and environment friendly workflows to its workers, cultivating a extra strong tech stack doesn’t come with out challenges.
Every time an insurance coverage group invests in a brand new digital answer, it’s creating higher efficiencies for at the very least one piece of the insurance coverage distribution puzzle. When a enterprise begins out, it might solely have the sources to buy essentially the most important expertise, like an e-mail utility and a bookkeeping software program. Because the enterprise grows, it invests in additional expertise to assist handle the rise in purchasers and workers — an HR system, a buyer relationship administration (CRM) system, a compliance administration answer, and so forth.
Whereas these programs little doubt create higher efficiencies for the enterprise, there’s no denying the irony that the extra complicated your tech stack will get, the extra inefficient it might probably change into. In actual fact, it’s not unusual that, as carriers and companies buy extra programs, they uncover some massive issues.
How does a fancy tech stack influence your insurance coverage enterprise?
Poor integration capabilities result in fragmented programs
The extra programs you add to your tech stack, the extra essential it’s for these applied sciences to speak with each other. However with as a lot as 74 p.c of insurance coverage firms nonetheless counting on legacy expertise for his or her core enterprise featuresseamlessly linking current programs to new ones in order that they operate collectively in a significant approach isn’t precisely the norm. Older programs use totally different knowledge codecs, protocols, and constructions than fashionable options. These variations may cause vital compatibility points that make integrations extra complicated and in the end result in system fragmentation.
Silos restrict good, data-driven enterprise choices
Your distribution channel is full of knowledge on each downstream companion you’re employed with. Proactive insurance coverage organizations use this knowledge to intelligently broaden, contract, and restructure their distribution channels in response to shifting market alternatives and challenges. In consequence, data-driven companies are 23 instances extra more likely to purchase new clients and 19 instances extra more likely to obtain above-average profitability than their much less data-driven counterparts. Nonetheless, Knowledge silosa typical symptom of lackluster integrations between a number of programs, make it tough to leverage producer knowledge for knowledgeable choices. Silos stop producer knowledge from flowing seamlessly by your programs, creating a number of variations of fact in your information and making it tough to decipher the place essentially the most correct data truly lives.
Scalability points stop worthwhile progress
On the subject of sustainable progress, automated options have been an actual game-changer for the insurance coverage trade. For instance, nowadays, with the appropriate distribution channel administration answerany provider onboarding an company and its a number of downstream producers can validate a number of licenses throughout a number of traces of authority and a number of states all on the click on of a button. Not all that way back, the identical course of was solely achievable by hours, if not days, of handbook work. Nonetheless, not all automations are created equally and lots of legacy applied sciences lack the flexibility to scale effectivelymaking it simply as tough to develop with out additionally growing overhead prices.
Disjointed programs enhance safety and compliance dangers
Advanced and ever-changing regulatory necessities type the spine of the insurance coverage trade (severely, we’ve got an entire sequence about it), making compliance more and more complicated to take care of. Staying on high of rules and avoiding penalties is especially difficult whenever you’re coping with disjointed programs which are unable to replace in real-time, creating inconsistencies in your distribution community knowledge. On high of compliance threat, knowledge safety is a significant concern for companies with a fancy tech infrastructure. In a examine analyzing the state of cybersecurity throughout the insurance coverage sectorSecurityScorecard discovered that third-party software program and IT vulnerabilities had been guilty for half of the information breaches reported by 150 high insurance coverage corporations.
Price range predictions reveal a higher deal with lowering IT complexity
Between the pitfalls of a fancy tech stack and the ongoing market volatility and consequent funds tightening of the previous few years, it might come as a suprise that consultants predict an enhance in tech spend throughout the insurance coverage trade over the following yr. However, digging a little bit deeper into the place and the way companies plan to make use of these funds paints a clearer image.
With talks of tech consolidation from big-name gamers like GEICOand higher stress on IT departments to ship quicker ROIit’s possible we’ll see much less prioritization on multi-year, complicated technological overhauls and higher funding in lower-lift, modular options to assist consolidate fragmented infrastructure, scale back vendor administration complexities, simplify workflows, and unlock deeper knowledge analytic capabilities.
The main focus shift makes much more sense when you think about the truth that many insurance coverage carriers and companies have already invested a long time of time and thousands and thousands of {dollars} into their current programs. On the subject of their IT, these of us aren’t seeking to reinvent the wheel a lot as they’re in search of complement options that can enhance their effectivity with as little enterprise interruption as attainable.
The answer: Investing in APIs to scale back tech complexity and enhance operational effectivity
For companies with current distribution channel administration ecosystems, utility programming interfaces (APIs) provide an answer for enhancing operational effectivity with out ripping and changing present programs. Modernizing massive and sophisticated programs, like these used to handle your insurance coverage distribution channels, can take months or years. APIs scale back tech complexity and get essentially the most full and up-to-date producer knowledge flowing by your programs extra shortly and effectively than ever earlier than. Carriers and companies that spend money on APIs profit from their:
Improved integration capabilities: APIs combine instantly into a company’s current platforms, opening the door for extra seamless knowledge trade between disparate programs and eliminating bottlenecks in day by day workflows.
Seamless, safe scalability: By leveraging APIs that derive knowledge from trade sources of fact, companies can focus much less of their time and sources on knowledge upkeep as their enterprise grows, and extra on taking advantage of the tech infrastructure that drives their core enterprise processes.
Actual-time knowledge: APIs can elevate distribution community knowledge high quality by synchronizing a company’s current tech (and the information that lives inside it) with trade sources of fact. Slightly than counting on handbook knowledge validation, APIs routinely guarantee producer knowledge is all the time up-to-date and helpful.
By leveraging APIs, insurance coverage carriers and companies can rework their tech infrastructure from complicated, fragmented, and inefficent to agile, related, and fashionable. In consequence, they’ll keep away from spending the money and time wanted to finish a complete system overhaul and achieve higher visibility into their distribution channel knowledge throughout their current platforms.
Let AgentSync’s ProducerSync API meet you the place you’re at
If tech complexity is obstructing key distribution channel knowledge from flowing by your current programs, then your knowledge’s not doing you a lot good. From surfacing key producer knowledge when and the place you want it (suppose earlier than binding a coverage or paying out a fee), to extremely refined analyses on methods to optimize your distribution channel for optimum success, ProducerSync API might be the tech enhancement your small business wants on the value and implementation timeline it needs.
Contact one in every of our consultants at present to learn the way your group may gain advantage from ProducerSync API.
Subjects
InsurTech
Tech
