We've discussed the human element quite a bit of late in stories concerned with the implementation of new software solution, but it's an issue that won't go away, particularly for small and mid-tier companies that have yet to make the technology changes that we write about so often here.

In an article I'm writing for Tech Decisions on analytics, Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for X by 2, reminded me once again how important it is for carriers to modernize their core systems in order to obtain some of the process improvements that make even the smallest of carriers somewhat competitive with the big guys in the industry.

Analytics can bring about a cultural change within an insurance carrier as time previously spent poring manually through a mountain of data can be analyzed in mere minutes if the data is clean and housed where access is available to those who can best use it.

All of us get caught up in the way we go about our jobs, particularly the traditional manual tasks that have been a part of the job manual for far longer than anyone originally imagined or intended.

Time makes people comfortable with their job descriptions, so advancements in technology—particularly ones that deliver improvements in both time spent on the task and the quality of the work completed—can make workers uneasy about their role and their skills.

"[Employees] probably do [their jobs] pretty well, but you upset the apple cart when you tell them they need to look at the world differently, particularly when there is a potential to automate tasks that haven't beendone that way before," says Petersmark. "A lot of work is stilldone manually even in big insurance companies. Throw those points in a bucket and shake things up and maybe that's what's holding some people back."

Analytics—particularly in its predictive form—is the reason all that data you've been collecting for so many years is now so valuable. Insurers have been looking for years at ways to unlock the knowledge tied within that data and now—through technology—companies are achieving their goals.

The impossible is now possible for even smaller insurance carriers; yet another reason to take a closer look at modernizing your systems.

Special Reports /

Modern Systems Open the Door to Analytics

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