IVANS Inc., the provider of insurance data exchange, announcesthe Top 5 technologies carriers are investing in orplanning to implement over the next 12 months are: underwritingsolutions, policy-administration systems, consumer portals,predictive analytics/business intelligence andmobility/virtualization.

“We are seeing carriers focus on infrastructure, productinnovation, analytics and automating workflows to maintain growthand create market differentiation in an increasingly challengingeconomic and regulatory environment,” says Clare DeNicola,president and CEO of IVANS. “The challenge is creating a clearstrategy on value creation that aligns technology with business andoptimizes the benefits with a carrier's business partners. Thosewho are successful will be able to capitalize on new marketopportunities and foster long-term growth.”

According to IVANS 2011 Carrier Automation Trends study, 49percent of carriers that responded are investing in underwritingsolutions to boost efficiencies and grow their business.Speed-to-market has become critical, and carriers looking todifferentiate themselves are investing in underwriting applicationsthat incorporate real-time processes and create greater visibilityin the front end of their value chain.

A heightened focus on expense reduction and growth strategies iscausing carriers to look for ways to increase flexibility, improvefunctionality and streamline reporting processes across their linesof business. Not surprisingly, 42 percent of carriers surveyed areinvesting in policy-administration systems to provide new avenuesfor capturing market share. With improved workflows and automatedunderwriting results, carriers are able to increase their ease ofdoing business and write more business with agents.

The IVANS study also revealed 25 percent of carriers alreadyhave a consumer portal, while 22 percent are currently implementingone and 18 percent have plans to put one in place over the next 12months. With limited ways to grow in the P&C insuranceindustry, consumer portals provide real-time quoting capabilitiesand lead-generating functionality that open up new distributionchannels that can be seamlessly integrated into a carrier'swebsite.

Almost 37 percent of carriers are currently implementing or haveplans to integrate predictive modeling and business intelligenceinto their organizations over the next 12 months. With externalinfluences (e.g., natural disasters, regulations) playing a largerrole in the industry, these technologies enable carriers to makemore consistent and accurate business decisions in lesstime.

Rounding out the Top 5 technologies are mobiledevices and desktop virtualization. Twenty one percent of carriersare putting into operation these technologies, and 13 percent areplanning to do so over the next year. Carriers are using mobilityto improve productivity in such areas as sales, support and claims.And desktop virtualization lowers IT costs while providing carriersbetter agent support and a strategic agility that can help withregional compliance requirements.

IVANS also asked carriers about social networking, and LinkedInand Facebook were chosen as the most popular social-networkingWebsites. Fifty percent are using LinkedIn and almost 49 percentare relying on Facebook as a daily business tool for communication,even though a return on investment is difficult to measure forboth. Interestingly, 52 percent of agents surveyed by IVANS inanother study said they do not engage in social media and, of thosewho do, only 14 percent use it to enhance customer service, citinglack of resources and having to compete with carriers for customerattention as barriers.

“These findings indicate that for carriers and agents torealize the full potential of social networking, they need todevelop joint social-media strategies that cultivate customerrelationships and improve agent-carrier communication,” saysDeNicola. “Additionally, the strategies need to communicate thoughtleadership while providing guidance on privacy and security issues.Doing so creates a consistent message that will further strengthenthe brand and lead to greater business growth forboth.”

The survey was conducted electronically July 12-16, 2011, andthe results represent responses from 120 P&C insurancecarriers from across the United States. For an executive summary ofIVANS 2011 Automation Trends Survey, contact Cecile Locurto at[email protected].