More than 50% of insurer CIOs are planning to upgrade reporting, data repositories and analytics capabilities in 2015, according to Novarica's "U.S. Insurer IT Budgets and Projects 2015," a survey of 88 insurer CIOs.

Business intelligence is the most active area for enhancement, while core policy administration is the No. 1 priority for replacement.

And as for emerging technology, software-as-a-service, tablets for internal users and social marketing are the most active areas for current and planned deployment. However, the P&C industry falls behind its life and annuity counterparts in this area.

Below, and on the following pages, read 6 findings about insurer IT budgets for 2015.

1. Most insurers plan modest budget increases

Spending ratios are up slightly to 3.8%, from 3.5% or 3.6% in previous years. A small percentage of respondents reported that budgets will be "much higher." Average IT spending ratios remain consistent with historical norms, of which Novarica hypothesizes that budget increases are tracking premium growth rather than exceeding it.

2. Supporting growth continues to be a dominant strategic goal of insurance IT spending

Growth and operational effectiveness are the key drivers of IT strategy development, Novarica reports, with competitive parity also ranking highly. Of average importance is expense reduction, compliance pressures and economic environment. Not registering on the radar? Insurers rarely factor in recent operating losses and investment losses when planning 2015′s IT strategy.

3. Less than half of insurers are happy with their current IT capabilities

Insurers remain critical of thier technology, with the exception of financials and IT security. CRM and customer portal capabilties are considered weak, and more than one third of insurers say that their analytics technology is in need of considerable improvement.

Novarica maintains that this self-assessment illustrates the current state of insurance IT and indicates why most current investments are "focused on getting insurers up to the bar rather than on leapfrogging competitors or on innovation."

4. Core policy administration remains the most active area for replacement

Nearly 40% of insurers are in the process of or are planning a policy administration system replacement in 2015. More than 80% of large P&C insurers rank it in their top three priorities.

Agent and customer portals are business intelligence enviroments are less likely to be replaced, but insurers are planning enhancements in these areas.

5. Business intelligence is the most active area for enhancement

More than half of the insurer CIOs are planning major enhancements in reporting, data repositories and analytics.

For P&C insurers, business intelligence and anlytics have surpassed distributor ease of doing business as the most commonly requested capabilities.

6. Emerging tech is still emerging–slowly

Nearly half of the surveyed insurers have some deployment of mobile or software-as-a-service cloud capabilities, less than 10% say they have extensive deployments in other emerging areas (mobile, social, big data).

Other than offering tablets for internal users, the P&C sector falls behind life and annuity in mobile capabilities. L/A repondents are twice as likely to offer mobile for agents and brokers (nearly 70%) than P&C insurers (about 35%). By percentage, more L/A respondents offer mobile for policyholders and also tablets for external users.

Social media pilots are becoming increasingly common, but few insurers are planning aggresive growth in this area. Primary uses are still related to marketing and branding communication, rather than analytics or customer engagement.

Regarding cloud-based offererings, the L/A sector again shines, and is more likely than the P&C industry to offer hosted applications, software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service capabilities.

Few insuresr have extensive deployments in big data, but there continues to be significant pilot activity.

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