
Technology Changes Coming Faster than Ever for Insurers
Robert Regis Hyle | October 28, 2015
As Guidewire Software prepares for the start of Connections, its 11th annual user conference that begins on Nov. 2, Brian Desmond, chief marketing officer, for the technology solutions provider, discussed the importance of the user conference and some of the issues faced by the insurance industry and companies like Guidewire.
“It makes us humble to have so many of our staff meet so many of our customers and see the impact of what we do has in their lives and the lives of their customers,” says Desmond. “We also leverage the event to listen to our customers to get their perspective on the pressures and opportunities they face, and where they would like to see the products go in the future from a business and technology standpoint.”
Changes in Technology
Desmond believes new technology and the pace of technology innovation is already impacting the insurance industry at a faster rate than ever before. He remembers when he joined Guidewire nine years ago and the dominant conversation at that time was build vs. buy.” Today, that discussion is no longer a question; packaged software has proven itself.
“The sheer number of trends, including new technology, is becoming real and its pace is far faster than ever before,” says Desmond. “Our prediction is that the acceleration of this trend will quicken in the years ahead.”
Desmond points to the use of drones and the Internet of Things as examples, but there is a myriad of possibilities for insurance companies across the entire life cycle, including underwriting and rating, and the service functions of insurance such as claims and billing.
Opportunities for Guidewire
Guidewire's mission is to help its customers adapt and succeed at a time of rapid industry change and to ensure every customer is successful in their journey, explains Desmond.
“The key phrase is ‘adapt and succeed.’ Our point of view is insurers need to continually adapt and succeed in their business and that it is not just one transformation; rather it's a long-lasting journey where we continually question what is working today and what will work in the future,” says Desmond.
It is also a credo Guidewire lives by. Desmond points out the company views it as their responsibility to provide a platform for P&C insurers and improve that platform in the years and decades ahead. Guidewire maintains a technology platform needs to consist of three elements: core processing, data and analytics, and digital engagements. These elements have to work together in a unified and connected way rather than in a silo.
Trends to Watch
The trends Guidewire sees happening are not earth-shattering, but Desmond believes they provide some clarity. He predicts personal auto, the biggest book of business in the industry, will decline significantly in the years ahead. The key factors in this change are driving is becoming safer, which leads to lower frequency and severity of accidents, and people will be driving less in the future.
He points to the evolution of Uber, which began in 2009 and today earns more than $500 million just in San Francisco alone, which Desmond explains is more than three times what all the taxi companies in that city make per year. Another example is Google and its self-driving cars, which reportedly have been driven autonomously or semi-autonomous over 1.7 million miles.
“Google is learning a ton about accidents that typically are not reported to the police and the cause of these accidents,” says Desmond. “Over the last several years they report 21 percent of fatalities and 50 percent of injuries involve accidents in intersections. The data comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation.”
The autonomous cars have been programmed to watch out for specific perils and so the cars pause briefly when a light changes before proceeding into the intersection.
“It's great for society, but for conventional car insurance it is a sign that the consequences for insurers are changing. If this is a big part of your book of business you should diversify your portfolio,” says Desmond.
Insurers need to look to get into areas of new risks such as identity risk and cybercrime, which are in early stages of adoption in the U.S. market, according to Desmond. The consequence for Guidewire, he adds, is to make sure its technology platform allows insurers to get to market quickly with new products or regional expansion.
The second trend, points out Desmond, is the increasing wave of digital engagement and the expectations consumers have. According to the Pew Research Center, as of April, 2015 64 percent of American adults owned smartphones. That's up from 35 percent in 2011. Pew also reports that 10 percent of that group of Americans with smartphones has no other form of Internet access in their homes.
“This is a generation that is going to demand the ability to buy insurance and be served by companies in a digital way,” he says. “Failure to provide a consumer-friendly experience will cause a major erosion of sales and allow customer-centric companies to meet that need and provide insurance across the entire life cycle of consumer needs and expectations. It is incumbent on Guidewire to have a platform that allows companies to digitally interact with customers and employees.”
Featured articles
- Getting Creative to Hit COVID Curveballs Out of the Park
- Electronic Chat with Eugenio Gonzalez, Plug and Play
- New Report Projects Global Insurtech to Grow by $21 Billion During 2020-2024
- The 2020 Virtual Event Wasteland
- Insurtechs, Investors Optimistic About Post-COVID Future, New DIA/McKinsey Study Finds
- Finding Grandmas
- No Code / Low Code: The New “Shortest Route” In Insurance Delivery
- Are You Addicted to Copy-and-Paste?
- Electronic Chat with Nino Tarantino, CEO- Americas, Insurance and Mobility Solutions (IMS)
- Driving Life Insurance:Tech Alone Won’t Solve Business Problems
- Electronic Chat with Robin Roberson, Managing Director, North America, Claim Central Consolidated
- How Do You Make It Happen?
- Electronic Chat with Jason Liu, CEO, Zywave
- New Partnership Models Take Program Business to the Next Level
- New Study Finds Less than Half of Consumers Trust Insurers to Respond to Their Needs
- Electronic Chat with Andrew Mauritzen, CFO and Head of Insurance Industry, Exactuals
- You Want Us To Do WHAT For Free?
- Electronic Chat with Evgeny Aleksandrov, Co-founder and CEO, Pilotbird
- Electronic Chat with Chris Cheatham, CEO, RiskGenius
- New MIT Sloan Study Finds Few Companies Gain Big Benefits from AI
- The September/October ITA Pro magazine is here!
- “Being Right” is Just the Start of the Battle
- Electronic Chat with Amit Ranjan, Executive VP and CAO, Xceedance
- Planning for Your Business and Tech Future: Strategies, Plans and Budgets for Rapid Transformation
- Electronic Chat with Jimmy Padia, Founder and CEO, Floatbot
- Gelato with Dots and Sprinkles
- COVID-19 and the Insurtech “Junk Drawer”
- Even “Change” is Different Now. Your Strategic Planning Needs to Be Too.
- The Road Ahead for P&C Insurers: How to Understand Customers Better and Navigate the Post-COVID Insurance Market
- Electronic Chat with Jake Tamarkin, Co-founder and CEO, Everyday Life
- Strategic Planning in the “New Normal” Digital Era of Insurance – Your Next Move
- Insurer Tech Investment Priorities See Major Shift in a Post-COVID World
- Plug and Play Selects 25 Insurtech Startups for Winter Batches
- Digital Transformation – A Top Strategic Priority and New Reality
- Four Steps to Successful Migration of Insurance CCM Applications
- COVID-19 Accelerates Insurance Digitalization to Meet Customer Demand: World InsurTech Report 2020
- Electronic Chat with Greg Williams, Co-Founder, President & CEO, Acrisure
- Electronic Chat with Matt Perlman, Partner, IA Capital Group
- Insurer Digitalization: Are you a Competitor or a Laggard?
- Leaders are Leading and Creating the Future of Insurance Distribution
- 3 Things You Need to Know About No-Code
- Electronic Chat with Adam Kiefer, CEO, Talage
- Underwriting in 3D: Using Data to Adapt and Improve Life Insurance Sales
- Getting Past the "Gelato Syndrome"
- Insurers Know CX/UX is Important, but Don't Agree on Execution, Study Finds
- Electronic Chat with Steve Lekas, Branch Insurance
- How AI Can Attract Millennial Talent to the Insurance Industry
- Preventing Data Breaches
- A New Boom for Life Insurance: Shifting Away from the 250-Year-Old Policy Transaction
- Electronic Chat with Ty Harris, Founder and CEO, Openly
- A Digital Wildfire Creates a Burning Platform for Digital Insurance Business Transformation
- Digitalization, COVID-19 Spurring More IT Investment in Cybersecurity
- Electronic Chat with Michael DeGusta, CEO, ClarionDoor
- U.S. Consumers Significantly Underestimate Flood Risk, New Survey Finds
- The Future of Insurance: Opportunities in Ecosystems
- Electronic Chat with Todd Greenbaum, CEO, Input 1
- Majesco to be Acquired by Thoma Bravo
- The Evolving Role of Managing General Agencies
- Electronic Chat with Char Hu
- Electronic Chat with Allan L. Egbert, Jr.
- Electronic Chat with Christopher Tramontano and Zbigniew Gawienczuk
- Data Science is Gelato
- Insurance Innovation: Alive and Kicking
- Independent Agents Divided on Digital Experience, New Survey Finds
- Electronic Chat with Michael Jones
- Electronic Chat with Paul VanderMarck
- As Auto Insurance Premiums Shrink, Insurers Need Mobility Ecosystem, New Study Finds
- Property & Casualty Insurers Raise Digital Games as COVID-19 Elevates Customer Expectations, J.D. Power Finds
- Electronic Chat with Bobbie Shrivastav
- Meet the Board: Marissa Buckley
- Big Data and Insurtech: A Carrier Perspective
- Traditional Insurers Need Open Ecosystems, Partnerships to Remain Competitive, CapGemini Report Finds
- Electronic Chat with John C. Siegman
- 4 Ways AI is Empowering Insurers During COVID-19
- 6 Big Changes to Insurance from the COVID-19 Crisis
- Electronic Chat with Christopher Ewing
- Independent Agency Staff Morale High During COVID-19, New Survey Finds
- Electronic Chat with Brad Epker
- Tapping AI to Improve Policyholder Experience
- Electronic Chat with Manisha Bhargava
- ITA Pro Magazine, March/April 2020
- COVID-19 a Game Changer for Workers’ Comp
- Electronic Chat with Steve Comer
- COVID-19 Pandemic Forces Cancellation of ITA LIVE 2020
- Leveraging Digital Resources in the Time of COVID-19
- Electronic Chat with Robert Hartwig on COVID-19 and Insurance
- Celent Study: Most Small Businesses Still Unclear on Importance of Cyber Insurance
- The January/February 2020 ITA Pro is here!
- Deloitte: New C-Suite Roles Mean More Opportunities for Women
- Electronic Chat with Pankaj Parashar
- Electronic Chat with Tara Kelly
- Electronic Chat with Chuck Wilson
- ITA, InsNerds Collaborate to Enhance ITA LIVE 2020 Content and Coverage
- How SMBs Can Compete in Digital Ecosystems in the 2020s
- 4 Ways Insurance Can Prepare for New Data Privacy Laws
- Brewer Lane Ventures Launches and Hires Insurtech Vet Martha Notaras as Managing Partner
- 2020 GIA Cohort Launches on January 14
- The November/December 2019 ITA Pro is here!
- Electronic Chat with Joshua Snead
- Electronic Chat with Wendy Aarons-Corman
- Simplifying the Move to a Third-party Print Provider
- Take a Business-Driven Approach to Continuous Improvement for Core Systems and Processes
- Electronic Chat with Ron Glozman
- Guidewire’s Data Guru Mike Byam on How Insurers are Using Internal and Third-Party Data
- Electronic Chat with Russ Bostick
- Electronic Chat with Rock Schindler
- Electronic Chat with John Siegman
- Electronic Chat with Martin Burlingame
- Insurtech Landscape 2019: Top 5 Takeaways
- Grinnell Mutual Tackles Massive Transformation -- in Stride
- A Candid Conversation with Paul Mang
- SageSure Insurance Managers Improved Competitiveness by Consolidating Payments to a Single Digital Platform
- Digital Does Matter in Insurance-- And Insurers are Missing the Mark
- The 22nd-Century Insurer: Taking a Cloud-First IT Approach
- The September/October 2019 issue of ITA PRO magazine is now available in digital format here:
- ITA Pro Magazine May/June 2019
- Spotlight on the 2019 IASA Conference
- ValueMomentum Selects Erie as Site of Regional Development Center
- Capgemini and Majesco Become Alliance Partners
- Electronic Chat with Dr. Dan Shoham
- Electronic Chat with Todd Greenbaum
- Martha Notaras: The “Outsider” with an Amazing Inside View
- Electronic Chat with Larissa Tosch
- Martha Notaras Will Join ITA LIVE 2019 as a Keynote Speaker
- Five Things to Consider When Evaluating Your Cyber Risk
- ITA Pro Magazine, January/February 2019
- Synergy Between Insurers' IT and Analytics Teams Key to Operationalizing Insights, Says Novarica
- Major Ransomware Attack Could Hit U.S. with $89B In Economic Damages
- ITA Announces 1st of Three Keynote Speakers at ITA LIVE 2019
- Electronic Chat with Jeroen Morrenhof
- Legacy Systems Are Dead. Really? Don't Count On It.
- Now Accepting Nominations for the 2019 ITA Bridge Awards
- It's time to register for ITA LIVE!
- Registration is Now Open for ITA LIVE 2019!
- What to Expect from a Digital Experience Platform Implementation
- ITA Pro Magazine September Edition is Now Available
- It's National IT Professionals Day
- Save the Date for ITA-LIVE 2019
- OneShield Software and UrbanStat Work Together to Improve Real-Time Analytics and Risk Decision-Making
- ITA LIVE 2019 - SAVE THE DATE!
- Insurance Technology Association Announces New Editor-in-Chief
- August 2018 Edition ITA Pro Magazine is Now Available
- Enterprise Architecture in an Agile World
- Top 10 Tips for Securing Your Mobile Devices and Sensitive Client Data
- Industry Insight: 4 Global Insurance Trends in Digital, Data, Content Services and Security
- Diving Deeper into Prioritizing Your Strategic Digital investments
- Why Content Rules
- How Mass Personalization Will Open the Small Business Benefits Market
- At Year End 2017, Will Your Organization Be Protected from Cyber Risks?
- Do Insurance Bots Dream of Mitigating Risk?
- Conditioned to Respond
- Managing & Mobilizing Insurance Data in a Connected World
- Race to the Finish Line
- New Tools, New Opportunities in Claims
- ITA LIVE: Reaching Insurance Industry Crossroads
- Advice to Insurance IT Leaders: Keep Your Eye on the Ball
- New Date, Venue for ITA LIVE 2017
- Guidewire Makes Major Push to Small and Midtier Market by Acquiring ISCS
- Insurance Disruption is Happening Right Now
- Insurity Adds Strategic Investment Partner, General Atlantic
- Beyond Transformation: The Convergence of Finance, Risk, and Actuarial Functions
- The Rapid Evolution of Consumer Protection Regulation
- Talent Hunt: Finding, Attracting, Retaining Top People
- Insurers Flexing Their Distribution Models
- Technology Driving Disruption in Insurance
- Fear of ‘Next Bubble’ Challenges Life, Annuity Carriers
- Technology Allows Commercial Lines Insurers to Stand Out
- Single Sign-on Viewed as Biggest Tech Challenge for Agencies
- ISCS Observes 20th Anniversary; Scurto Predicts Major Changes Ahead
- Policyholders and Their First Impressions
- Progressive Making Progress on the UBI Front
- High and Dry: Insurers Search for Disaster Recovery Plans
- Insurers Sign The (Un)Dotted Line
- Reflections of a Retired Insurance CIO
- Mobile Device Management Just One Answer to BYOD Issue
- Lessons from GEICO and Progressive on Winning the Critical Buying Stage
- You Are a Target for a Cyber Attack
- Web-based Systems are the Next Evolution in Claims Technology
- Gaining a “Wow” Experience from Web Users
- Time to Shift from Business/IT Alignment to Business/IT Alliance
- Healthcare Insurers Changing to Consumer Model
- Organization is the Key for Selecting Software Vendors
- Analysts Expound on the Needs of the Mid-tier Insurance Market
- Finding the Cure for Obamacare’s Website
- New Software Solutions Benefit Insurers on the Inside and Outside
- Products, Market Impede Investment in Systems for Life Insurers
- Combatting Cyber Threats: Predict, Prevent, Persist
- The Future of Telematics Heads Beyond Insurance
- The Shame in Cyber Security Lapses
- Building Policy Administration Systems for the Future
- Insurers Look Into The Eyes of Their Policyholders
- It’s a New Dawn for the ITA
INSURANCE IT NEWS
- Electronic Chat with Eugenio Gonzalez, Plug and Play
- Nexilis’ Distribution Platform Selected by W.H. Greene and Associates to Drive Underwriting Transformation
- Breeze Adds Critical Illness Insurance to Digital Platform, Growing Partnership with Assurity Life
- Buckle Appoints Sharon Fernandez to Head of Insurance
- InsurTech NY Announces Global Early-Stage Insurtech Competition
- Altshuler Shaham Selects Sapiens for the Operation and Automation of its Provident and Pension Funds
- NetVU Announces Plans for 2021 Accelerate Conference
- Openly Secures $40M in Series B Funding Round to Accelerate Rapid Growth
ELECTRONIC CHAT
The Email Chat is a regular feature of the ITA Pro magazine and website. We send a series of questions to an insurance IT leader in search of thought-provoking responses on important issues facing the insurance industry.
-
Electronic Chat with Ellen Moser, Senior Client Executive, Origami Risk LLC
Laura Mazzuca Toops
Last month Origami rolled out new online tools enabling employers to track employee COVID-19 vaccinations and monitor outbreaks... READ MORE
ITA LIVE 2020
ITA LIVE 2020 –SAVE THE DATE!
April 5th – 7th, 2020
The Diplomat Resort
Hollywood, FL
Become a member today to receive updates – www.itapro.org/MR
BLOGS AND COLUMNS
only online
-
Down Market Opportunities Beckon Benefits Insurers
You have surely heard it said that small businesses are the growth engine for America. Today, the phrase has a special ring to it for benefits... READ MORE
-
Technology at the Heart of Change in Insurance
With stagnant growth and lingering low interest rates, the life insurance industry faces a challenging future... READ MORE
-
Got Policies? IVANS Service Helps Feed Commercial Lines Producers
Finding insurance carriers willing to write commercial lines risks has always been a challenge for producers... READ MORE
-
Technology Changes Coming Faster than Ever for Insurers
As Guidewire Software prepares for the start of Connections, its 11th annual user conference that begins on Nov. 2, Brian Desmond, chief marketing... READ MORE
Vendor Views
-
Sink or Swim: A Mid-Term View of Virus Impact
COVID-19 has said to insurers, “It’s time to move... READ MORE
- Vendor Views
Partner News
-
Big Data and Insurtech: A Carrier Perspective
Insurance has always relied on large volumes of data to gauge customer behavior and more. But as big data has gotten bigger, insurtech has empowered... READ MORE
- Partner News