In the property & casualty insurance market, the pressure to reduce costs, increase market share, comply with changing regulatory and financial reporting requirements, and meet rising customer service expectations—all in an efficient and relevant manner—has never been greater. Because claims reaches into so many areas of an insurer's operations and is its most highly-visible, customer-facing service, many P&C carriers have undertaken claims transformation initiatives to help them meet market and customer demands. 

Insufficient change management and non-integrated, stand-alone technology solutions are among the common challenges an insurer faces when undergoing a claims transformation project. Another frequent and potentially more serious challenge is the inaccurate or incomplete conversion of large amounts of data to new claims platforms, opening the door to budget overruns and potentially impacting the performance and benefits anticipated from the transformation initiative.

In the majority of claims transformation projects, large-scale data conversions are required to decommission old claim systems and to ensure that claims data from old systems is migrated to the new claims platform. When this critical step breaks down, it is typically due to a poorly-defined conversion strategy and reconciliation criteria, lack of clarity in defining the future state of the claims operation, insufficient alignment of claims data conversion strategy with the overall deployment strategy and limited subject matter expertise across the program. Many insurers simply underestimate the level of effort required to complete the complex task. This is especially true when the overall program is subject to very tight project timelines.