Guidewire Software announced the results of the underwriting andpolicy management that identifies and compares insurercharacteristics and system functionality needs by type ofunderwriting strategy.

The research study was commissioned by Guidewire and conductedby Ward Group, an independent consulting firm specializing in theinsurance industry. The study benchmarks best practices informationto help insurers compare their underwriting performance and policyprocessing operations against those of peers with similar underwriting objectives.

Participants included more than 50 property/casualtyinsurers across North America, and represented a cross section ofcarriers by size, business type, and distributionchannel.

Study highlights include:

• Overall, underwriters reported spending nearly twice as muchtime on administrative policy processing tasks as they would like.Insurers are striving for a smarter use of time by focusingunderwriters on high value tasks, such as those that improverelationships with producers.
• Efficient personal lines insurers focused on streamliningpolicy processing and improving data quality, with moreself-service utilization, resulting in reduced underwritingexpenses and a profit ratio two points higher than the overallgroup. Sixty-three percent of these highly efficient carriersindicated they felt they were outperforming their peers in agentease of doing business.
• Among commercial insurers, efficiency did not consistently leadto better profit performance. Carriers that emphasizedunderwriting efficiency and shifted their focus from risk selectionto service delivered profit ratios 14 points lower than theaverage.
• Overall, 60 percent of participants indicated the need forbetter core system functionality in order to make betterunderwriting decisions. The high profit performers in bothpersonal and commercial lines had, on average, newer underwritingsystems.

“This underwriting and policy management study provides uniqueinsight into how underwriting tactics and strategies correlate tocompany results and profitability,” says Quin Netzel, director,Ward Group. “It is our assertion that benchmarking insurerperformance is a valuable tool that can aid insurers in evaluatingtheir underwriting practices and focusing their efforts to alignwith their strategic objectives.”

“The study results highlight the role of technology in helpinginsurers attain their underwriting objectives,” says NeilBetteridge, director, Guidewire Software. “The right underwritingand policy administration system can make all the difference inequipping an insurer to streamline operations and profitablyexecute their underwriting strategies. This enablesunderwriters to focus on improving risk analysis and pricingaccuracy, supported by better access to customer data, and freesthem to interact more with producers and customers.”

Download the study results at: http://success.guidewire.com/UnderwritingSurvey