One of the things technology observers find so amazing is how quickly ideas can spread into implementation. But even as seasoned a spectator as Novarica's Matt Josefowicz is impressed with how quickly insurers are adopting mobile technology.

Novarica conducted a study on mobility in 2010 and usage was limited mainly to senior executives and claims adjusters who would use their smartphones for email and calendar notices, according to Josefowicz, partner and managing director of Novarica.

This week, the consultancy issued two new reports—one on current trends and expectations for mobile beyond personal lines and the other on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) usage for U.S. insurers.

“In 2010 there was a little flicker—less than 10 percent—of people doing things with tablets,” says Josefowicz. “A couple of early adopters had them, but they had not blown up yet. Over the last two-and-a-half-years, tablets have become ubiquitous. The adoption rate for tablets across all industries is phenomenal.”

Less than three years after that initial report, tablet sales are cutting deeply into the laptop market. One reason for this movement, believes Josefowicz, is the popularity of the keyboard case.

“The keyboard case makes it a good 80 percent solution for a lot of business users,” he says. “An 80 percent solution that is light, starts up right away, and is a good personal tool is better for a lot of people than the 100 percent solution of the laptop.”

As mobile use expands into the life and annuity market, as well as multiline, commercial lines and specialty lines insurers, IT departments are forced to deal with a lack of experience within the shop when it comes to implementation of a mobile strategy.

“Most insurance IT organizations have a relatively low turnover rate and people have been there a long time,” says Josefowicz. “There hasn't been any pressure to develop those [mobile] skills. Also, there is a lot of competition in the economy for these skills because so many are building out mobile capabilities.”

That has changed, though. Companies are turning to consultancies, IT service and platform providers, and specialized builders to solve the implementation challenge, points out Josefowicz.

“There are a few prepackaged mobile products and a bunch of the platform vendors are adding mobile capabilities, generally with an eye toward tablets,” he says. “Thanks to the Apple/Google duopoly there is a tablet/smartphone convergence. If you build something that works on Android and iOS, you have covered a good bulk of the marketplace.”

Josefowicz warns insurers not to rely totally on the two major platforms, though, and to keep an eye on the open platform of HTML5.

“Right now it's a bit like the mid-90s in mobile-land,” he says. “The closed platforms have a dominant market share today and it is important to support them. It's also important to keep an eye on the open platform. If history is a guide that will start to evolve aggressively in the next few years, but in the short term supporting Android and iOS is important.”

The influx of BYOD has come from employee demands, explains Josefowicz. He explains some companies have conducted quantitative analysis around the advantages of cost savings from not having to support devices and pay for the master contracts.

“The theory is everyone has a smartphone for their personal life anyway,” he says. “It's more a matter of how people expect to work. People don't want to carry two devices anymore. They want access to their business information on that personal device. It's still mostly email/calendaring stuff, but we are seeing additional capabilities being enabled on the devices.”

The next area of importance, particularly for mid-tier carriers, is mobile device management (MDM). Josefowicz maintains mid-tier companies are more conservative about who they open BYOD to, which means a governance needs to become a part of the strategy.

“We believe it is important to look at the MDM platforms in terms of security issues and the remote-wipe capabilities,” he says. “The number of iPads that are left in airplane seat-backs every year is staggering. The good news is those types of platforms make it easy to remote wipe data. Also, not as much data is typically stored on a tablet or on a smartphone. Now that we have ubiquitous connectivity, having that thin device would provide some comfort to corporate IT because less of their data is floating outside the corporate firewall.”

Special Reports /

Mobile Technology Becomes Ubiquitous in Just a Short Time

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