It has never been easy being an insurance company CFO. In addition to the issues created by complex legacy systems and organizational models–and the move to digital transformation–CFOs in recent years have had to deal with new risk, regulatory and compliance requirements.

As part of Accenture's 2014 High Performance Finance Study–in which we spoke to more than 600 CFOs and senior finance officers in multiple industries–we surveyed more than 75 individuals from major P&C and life insurance companies worldwide. We found that insurance CFOs, like finance officers in other industries, have added "achieving growth" to an already long list of high priorities. This means that, in addition to their ongoing focus on operational cost management, insurance finance executives are making plans and investments that will create a solid foundation for future growth. Executing on these plans, however, will not be easy.

Respondents highlighted managing business complexity as a key challenge. In particular, dealing with legacy systems and environment was highlighted by 59% of insurers as a key issue. Legacy systems paired with the need to optimize the capital structure of the enterprise were the top two issues named by respondents. The overall challenge of managing the needs of diverse stakeholders was the third most commonly identified concern, named by 49%. Complexity cannot be avoided, but managing complexity requires concerted action to simplify, standardize and optimize business information, processes and tools.

In general, surveyed insurers have been relatively slow to centralize their finance and risk resources. Many have multiple operating segments, each with their own risk and finance groups, and this has made integration difficult. Currently, only 12% say that they have a single, enterprise-wide finance and risk repository. But this is changing; in two years' time, almost three-quarters of insurance respondents say that a single, enterprise-wide risk and finance repository is their target model.

Among those surveyed, P&C insurers have a particularly strong aspiration to reach this target model. In our experience, greater centralization has many benefits, including more efficiency, and the ability to serve customers better and on a timelier basis. While many companies have avoided moving to proven shared services operating models–usually for fear of losing context and connection with the business areas they support–there are clearly opportunities to centralize key services and expand business insight and reach by leveraging improved and expanded sources of information.

Insurance finance executives who are serious about making a shift toward growth should be thinking about three key elements right now:

1) Get the technology platform in place. Many insurers have not meaningfully updated their finance and risk platforms for 10 years, some not since the run-up to Y2K. This has forced a level of creativity (and complexity) to support ongoing needs over the years while living with historical processes and information structures. If they haven't done so already, insurers should be taking steps to update their platforms so that they can simplify processes, provide dramatically improved information access, and, in many cases, reduce cost through technological innovations such as cloud and in-memory computing.

2) Get organized for regulatory change. Around the world, insurers face new regulations aimed at strengthening their capital positions and ensuring that they are able to structure and manage their risk programs appropriately. Among insurers surveyed for our research, 43% say that regulation is having a large negative impact on their finance function's performance, and an overwhelming 98% say that addressing regulatory and compliance issues is important to their finance function's performance.Getting organized entails preparing the necessary data for regulatory compliance, while making steady progress against monitoring and reporting compliance needs, among more strategic change imperatives.

3) Align talent with the growth agenda. Too many insurers overburden their most productive people with low-value-added transactional activities. Actions aimed at reducing complexity, organizing data and taking advantage of new technologies should be linked to a talent strategy that seeks to free up people to work in areas that bring real value to customers and shareholders. It may be necessary to train people to give them the skills required for growth areas such as performance management and analytics, as the focus shifts to interpretation rather than data accumulation.

Insurance company CFOs will need to juggle priorities dexterously over the next few years. Every insurer has more mature, traditional lines of business with largely predictable revenue streams, and emerging products that offer good prospects but are inherently uncertain. There are two key ways to for the Finance function to focus on growth while allowing latitude for promising growth opportunities. The first is to improve finance and risk capabilities to enable both current business performance and new business investment and growth. The second is to engage actively across the business to help govern, measure, and navigate the level of change needed to drive growth in the digital era. Leaders that do both of these things should be well-positioned for profitable growth.

Special Reports /

Serious about growth? 3 moves that insurance CFOs must take

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