NU Online News Service
Trends among vendors in the policy administration space have emerged, and offerings that were sparsely available in 2007 have become commonplace today, according to a Celent report.
The report, "Trends and Predictions for P&C Policy Administration Systems 2009," identified the emergence of underwriting and service desktops; improved "new business automation" capability; convergence of ultra-configurable and domain content rich systems; increased focus on usability and screen design; and a rise in European partner certification programs as five trends in the policy administration space.
To help underwriters and service staff with their key metrics – including decision quality for underwriters and policyholder/producer satisfaction – vendors have developed environments called desktops, generally consisting of "a comprehensive set of screens, designed in a uniform and interrelated way to facilitate the work of an underwriter or service staff," Celent said.
The Celent report states, "As insurers become more sophisticated in their assessment of how well their policy administration system is supporting their underwriters and service staff, vendors are creating environments crafted to enable those users to work faster and smarter. These environments are underwriter and service staff desktops."
Among other functions, these desktops often have, according to Celent, navigation tools and methods allowing a user to switch easily between screens/tabs/tasks, and the ability to drill down to details while retaining place in an existing task.
The second trend, "new business automation," is, according to Celent, a cross-system process that assists in the goal of integrating systems, rather than having siloed services.
Technology advances have allowed vendors to increase support for new business automation, the Celent report states. "With many vendor systems and insurer infrastructures embracing a service-oriented architecture," according to the report, "it's easier to orchestrate a true functional flow across multiple areas of the business."
Celent defines the third trend, "ultra-configurable system," as a system where "an insurer can deploy their custom implementation with little to no code."
The report notes, "Ultra-configurable, meta-data driven, rules and tools based policy administration systems (PAS) are now so key to the modern PAS marketplace that it is more a reality of the space than a trend."
Continuing to develop the look, feel, and usability of interfaces is also a key trend, Celent said. "Focusing on the look and feel may seem trivial, given the complexity of business logic behind the scenes. But to ignore the user interface is a mistake, in Celent's opinion, and vendors still manage to differentiate their products by keen attention to usability."
Delivery approaches for PAS in Europe differs from North America, Celent said, and vendors have adapted by establishing partner networks with specialist knowledge in target national insurance markets.
The report states, "Partner programs have been in place for many years, but the current trend is to formalize these relationships through certification programs. This is similar to what has been in place at Microsoft, where solution providers are graded according to their skills and offerings as certified partners of Microsoft."
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