Over the last three years, several issues have taken theforefront in insurance technology. Things such as social media,mobility, and usage-based insurance have captured the imaginationof insurance IT shops and changed much of the traditionalfocus.

So what lies ahead for 2013? We are three months away from thenew year, but we asked some leading industry analysts to predictwhat technology functions will capture the attention of CIOs andtheir hard-working staffs in the months ahead.

Sharing their viewpoints are: Bill Jenkins, of Agile InsuranceAnalytics; Frank Petersmark, X By 2; Karen Pauli, CEB TowerGroup;Chad Hersh, of Novarica; and Ellen Carney, of ForresterResearch.

Bill Jenkins, managing partner at Agile InsuranceAnalytics

Carriers continue to pursue and plan for implementation ofbusiness intelligence and predictive analytics (as subset of BI) inorder to develop the insights from the data they collect todifferentiate themselves from the competition through service,products, and price, as well as being able to make betterdecisions. In this vein, a number of insurance IT solution firmshave begun to incorporate operational business intelligence intotheir products/systems. As such, the ability to obtain businessintelligence from core processing systems is becoming “tablestakes” for buyers/users of these systems.

This keen interest in business intelligence/analytics now hascarriers assessing their capabilities to manage and to successfullydeliver and use these technologies. These assessments include theaspects of data quality, data management, data governance, neededskill sets, and proper numbers of staff along with aligning thedata initiatives with the company strategy and needs( a datastrategy aligned with the business strategy).

Surveys have indicated:

• Accenture: 80 percent of companies pursuing use of BItechnologies are not achieving the desired results
• Accenture: Over two-thirds of companies acknowledge not havingthe needed skill sets to manage data and use analytics
• Ventana Research: In 80 percent of the companies surveyed, ITand business do not align.
• MIT survey and analysis done by Thomas Davenport in his book,“Competing on Analytics”: Competent use of BI and analytics boost acompany's productivity by five to six percent.

Frank Petersmark, CIO Advocate, X By 2

While technologies such as social media, mobility, and cloudbased services/virtualization will continue to have mostly positiveimpacts on the insurance industry in 2013, I think that there aretwo other technological and process trends that will have a majorbearing on the industry, and they're both things that the industryknows well: core systems modernization and dataanalytics.

In both cases, many carriers have been working on borrowed timein terms of the functionality, information, and processlimitations. However, with the advent of better core systemsoftware choices—including well-integrated suites for policy,claims, and billing—2013 should finally be the year that carrierscomplete or at least make significant progress in their legacymodernization efforts. Hand in hand with these newer coresystem platforms is the ability to significantly improve acarrier's information gathering and distribution capabilities, andalong with some new software offerings in the advanced analyticsand predictive modeling realms, should improve most carrier's breadand butter business processes, and that should lead to improvedcustomer service.

It has been a long time coming, so long, in fact, that there aresome questions as to whether or not modernized core systemsrepresent mere table stakes or real competitive advantage, but ineither case the time has come.

Karen Pauli, research director, insurance, CEBTowerGroup

One of the major questions we keep hearing from insuranceexecutives is: “Where I am going to get individuals with businessand analytics skills?” Due to the ramp up in social media andusage- based insurance, combined with the mountain of existingunstructured data, the technology that will be important in 2013 ishigh performance, visual analytics.

Analytics, in general, is now a staple in the insurance industryso the logical next step is broadly institutionalizing the skillsand wrestling the data into consistent insight. Highperformance visual analytics allows a business analyst to work inan intuitive visual environment, that doesn't require deepanalytics/modeling skills, yet enhances businessoutcomes.

This technology delivers in-memory computing power value so thatcostly analytic and predictive cycle times are eliminated. This iscritical given the escalating pace of time-to-decision. Highperformance, visual analytics transforms traditional“project-based” analytics into enterprise, innovative thinking anddecisioning.

Chad Hersh, partner, Novarica

While social media will continue to thrive as a marketingtool—and in a few rare instances as a sales channel—mobile israpidly becoming a must-have for P/C in a number of areas, withapps for consumers (claims FNOL, policy view, electronic ID cards,home inventory, etc.) leading the way.

The trail for usage-based insurance continues to be blazed byProgressive with their well-played 30 day free trial of theirSnapshot product which both draws in consumers without forcing themto switch while simultaneously allowing Progressive to both priceout the bad risks and collect valuable data.

Ellen Carney, senior analyst, ForresterResearch

In a word, it's mobile. Mobile insurance experiences areevolving as fast as new technology gets incorporated into whatseems like a near continuous stream of new phones with newfeatures.

But digital insurance teams need to scan the mobile landscapefor innovations that can create better consumer or agentexperiences, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. And for mobileinitiatives to deliver the expected outcomes, digital teams need avision for 2013 that moves their firms from experimentation tomobile maturity.

Donald Light, director, Americas Property/CasualtyPractice

2013 will see a substantial amount of activity in what issometimes called “The Internet of Things.” This refers todevices that automatically record and transmit various kinds ofdata to large data repositories.

Telematics, in the sense of devices on-board various types ofmotor vehicles, is an example that has been with us for severalyears. Usage-based insurance is a next generation version oftelematics that records a much broader data set (for example, speedwhile turning, acceleration/braking patterns over time,etc.). A critical benefit of usage based insurance isthat it can and should provide a feedback loop to vehicleowners/users giving them incentives to improve driver behavior.Think, for example, about the parents of a teenage driver, or theowner of a fleet of delivery trucks.

More broadly sensing/transmitting devices are being increasinglyplaced in other vehicles (ships, planes, farm and constructionequipment), machinery, buildings, and bridges. Sometimes thedevices will just tap into already embedded information systems—andwork primarily as transmitting devices. Other times, thedevices will record and transmit new types of data (e.g. vibrationson a bridge, or the level of pedestrian traffic in front of a largeoffice building).

Soon devices also will be embedded in people. Monitoringthe blood sugar levels of a diabetic person is an easy example.There also are numerous other serous (and eventually more mundane)medical conditions for which continuous monitoring (and correctiveactions) will improve quality of care and outcomes.

From an insurance IT perspective, all this representssignificant challenges in terms of acquiring (the communicationslink); storing, analyzing, and operationalizing insights from verylarge amounts of both structured and unstructured data. Celentbelieves that in 2013 many insurance IT groups will begin coming togrips with these challenges.