Moving from Efficient to Proficient

Faced with a host of challenges and pressures, insurers have been driven to look for new ways to improve results in areas such as reducing claims leakage, improving underwriting performance, and generally reducing costs. Pressures include an economy that, while certainly in recovery mode, has been slower and weaker than hoped. Add to that investment income that is unlikely to ever mimic the strong, steady, sustained growth of the equities market in the mid-90s and early 2000s; premiums that are unlikely to fully recover anytime soon (thanks to lots of capacity and fewer exposures in the P/C market and decreased demand for certain life and annuity products); increasing competition for profitable niches; cost savings pressures, and the economic climate is not ideal.

Thanks to this less-than-ideal environment, many carriers have included as part of their strategies three key business goals. These goals include maintaining or improving their market position (sales/cross-sell/up-sell), retention (renewal), and efficiency.