Straight-Through Processing Helps Bolster Insurer Data Quality, Client Intelligence

With the continued turmoil in the financial marketplace, many insurance carriers are challenged to maintain profitability and identify opportunities for continued growth. And while yesterday’s growth was driven primarily by volume, tomorrow’s growth seems destined to lay with the carrier’s ability to streamline business processes, leverage technologies to reduce operating costs and offer first-rate service to improve customer retention and loyalty.

Straight-through processing–better known as STP–is a term long associated with the financial services and securities industries. Utilizing workflow and business process technologies, STP is an initiative used to optimize the speed at which transactions are processed, allowing the seamless and accurate transactional exchange of information electronically, with little need for human intervention.

It is becoming evident with the advent of service-oriented architecture and Web technologies that STP will begin to play a larger and more prominent role in process transformation at insurance carriers.