An Enterprise Solution Consolidates Policy, Claims, & Billing

By Randy Wheeler

Today, insurance companies must manage more information than ever before. Unfortunately, many are still utilizing separate point solutions for policy administration, underwriting, claims management, and billing. Some insurers even utilize different systems to service their various lines of business. These redundant and disparate systems create a disjointed infrastructure and separate silos of information that result in inefficiency, manual workarounds, and an inability to adapt in a highly competitive insurance environment.

As a result, many insurers are now demanding a more integrated enterprise solution that enables a high level of data consolidation and automation across their organizations. A single, seamless infrastructure enables insurers to more accurately price premiums, optimize policy and underwriting efficiencies, accelerate product development, and transform sales and distribution, making it easier for customers and producers to conduct business with these carriers.

To meet insurer needs, an enterprise solution should integrate three core modules--policy, claims, and billing--into one solution that supports an insurer's complete business needs, as well as provides the following key benefits:

• Insurance Intelligence. Developed with in-depth expertise and in collaboration with market-leading insurance companies, an enterprise solution has built-in "insurance intelligence." In the past, expertise and data resided in the minds of insurance professionals or paper-based files--unable to be leveraged across the enterprise. Today, an enterprise solution embodies both industry knowledge and proven best practices with powerful "out of the box" capabilities.
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• Powerful Development & Customization. Insurance business needs and regulatory requirements constantly change, and insurers must respond quickly, offering new products, adjusting rates, and implementing new processes as needed. Traditionally, it took up to 18 months to make system changes to legacy applications. A flexible enterprise solution endows insurers with market agility. Business users can quickly make system and process changes on their own. With this level of development capabilities, IT departments have maximum control to configure and customize the system to meet their specific company needs.
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• Powerful Data Management, Analysis, and Reporting. Since information is the key to improve operations and profitability, an enterprise solution must create a centralized data repository to consolidate and manage information. Using a browser-based platform, carriers can deliver increased transparency and the benefits of online information, real-time transactions, and 24/7 connectivity that customers have come to expect.
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• From a management perspective, powerful data reporting enables insurers to leverage real-time intelligence to holistically manage their books of business. The system analyzes policy, claims, and risk information. In addition, end users can customize and modify reports with easy-to-use configuration. Carriers leverage these analytical capabilities to achieve aggressive market growth.
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• A Rules Engine to Drive Workflow. Most policy and underwriting processes are performed with labor-intensive operations, manual data entry, and spreadsheet-based calculations that are prone to error. To replace this inefficient process, a rules engine will automate workflow, improve underwriting decision-making, and enhance the rate of straight-through processing. Insurers utilize business rules to incorporate unique practices and automate mundane tasks, which reduces overhead and focuses more attention on customer service.
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• Enhanced Integration & Connectivity. Insurance companies have complex IT environments, and they increasingly must connect to and exchange information with external partners, applications, and data sources. An enterprise solution optimizes data and system integration. Various types of "connector" technologies are provided, such as real-time data exchange using message-oriented middleware (MOM) and ACORD standards, such as XML and Web services. With sophisticated integration capabilities, insurance IT departments can deliver more capabilities--faster and cheaper than ever before, as well as modernize various components to reduce maintenance and operational costs.

As insurance companies prepare to invest in an enterprise solution, they must justify the expense with a business case and performance metrics, which demonstrate not only a return on investment, but also long-term business value.

With an integrated enterprise solution, insurers will be able to leverage real-time business intelligence--the "lifeblood" of strategic business decisions--to reduce underwriting risks, to automate workflow, and boost the bottom line. Since they can modify and customize the system on their own, they simultaneously accelerate responsiveness to the market and customers. Due to these factors, many insurers view a modern enterprise solution as a strategic investment to improve growth and profitability, and deepen client relationships.

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Randy Wheeler is the managing director of Aon eSolutions. For more information, visit www.aon-esolutions.com or email Randy_Wheeler@aon.com.