Consider the amount of data that is amassed and traded betweenconsumers and insurers. At the industry's most basic level, inorder to provide consumers with the cost of the policies for theirhomes, cars, personal property, lifestyle and health, insurers mustcompare data given to them by consumers with data they havecollected on a set of risk factors. Seems simple enough, but thisage-old process could improve through better data utilization,especially in the era of usage-based policies.

It's truly staggering how much data we have to work with in theinsurance industry. Approximately 2.4 billion GB of data isgenerated per day within this industry. If 100 GB can hold anentire library floor of academic journals and a single gigabyte ofsmartphone data is the equivalent of eight hours of YouTube videos,2.4 billion GB is a staggering amount. In reality, the insuranceindustry is really the "big data" industry. But beyond policywriting, or even usage-based policy writing, what are we reallydoing to take advantage of it?

The industry is just beginning to put together an action planfor its customers. For example, we are seeing the increased use ofmobile applications to provide first-notice-of-loss for autoinsurance and to provide instant accident help. There's still workto be done before we can use data to create true customercentricity and gain better insights into their preferences and, inreturn, develop more successful cross-selling and retentioninitiatives.

Even though insurers have access to a lot of big data,challenges to integrating and employing it need to be firstacknowledged. Because data is often difficult to work with, itrequires the use of new technologies, tools, techniques andexpertise The fact that there are 2.4 billion GB of data createddaily means that this exponential growth is taking place at tooquick a rate for the established methods to work any longer.

Being able to extract data quickly, process it and derivemeaning from new sources, such as social media, is the key tobreaking away from competition and gaining more robust customerinsights to shape better-developed selling and retentioninitiatives.

The first step in better using data throughout the insurancesales cycle is investing more heavily in technology that can managecomplex sets of data.

One example of a technology that insurers should be using moreoften is cloud computing. The cloud allows not only for larger datastorage space but also for significantly greater IT and businessagility and scalability, greater economies of scale andstandardization across organizations, and better access toreal-time data, resulting in improved productivity, with a lowertotal cost of ownership.

In fact, cloud can extend its benefits across an insurer'sentire value chain, including how insurers design and market newproducts and services, interact with customers and businesspartners and manage risk. The benefits of cloud technology in theinsurance industry are still being tested, but one thing is forsure: Exciting possibilities are ahead.

Benefits of Data Integration

We need to find ways to seamlessly integrate and leverage datathroughout the insurance sales cycle— not just at a single,isolated point. Large-scale data integration finds meaningfulcustomer insights between and across data sets. Consolidatingvendor work orders, estimates, invoices and customer feedbackscores into a single database is one way to track, analyze andmanage vendor performance and enhance the overall claimsoutcomes.

Data integration also can be used to enhance the customerexperience. In fact, carriers are developing a sophisticated viewof claims service segments and sub-segments by various policy,underwriting and customer dimensions to improve customerexperience. Additionally, many P&C carriers have deployedcomputer telephony integration and web technology to drive furtherefficiencies and a better experience in their sales and serviceoperations.

The greater investment in new technologies and processes tomanage and mine big data means insurers have the ability to mapclaims leakages and better manage claim payouts, understand, marketto and price policies to service their customers via a morecustomer-centric approach, and quickly detect and mitigate fraud.This is the guide to improving profitability and customersatisfaction.

Relevant to underwriting, early detection of potentially adverseclaim developments through enhanced big data analytics capabilitiesis sharpening insurers' competitive edge, allowing them to moreaccurately predict risk, and yielding cost savings.

In the future, insurance organizations will not compete on howthe data is gathered and stored. Rather, they will differentiatethemselves based on how well they deal with the collection of dataand how they choose to use it to provide more tailored andcompetitive customer experiences.

Choosing to take advantage of the wealth of data that isavailable to insurers and utilizing the right technologies,processes and techniques to integrate and leverage data throughoutthe entire insurance sales cycle will result in less customerturnover and greater business outcomes.