Despite conditions that have made many companies more risk-averse, there is strong interest in automating underwriting and new business functions.
Insurers are increasingly looking at new business and automated underwriting systems to help address growth, fulfill service and distribution mandates, and reduce the cost per policy issued. New business and automated underwriting systems have gone through an evolution over time. New business and underwriting systems have evolved into systems that tie application questions and third party data into the underwriting for specific products. Data analysis capability has been expanded, and insurers can use system behavior to change underwriting rules quickly.
In a new report, North American Life Insurance New Business and Underwriting Systems, 2010, Celent reviews 12 new business and automated underwriting systems in use for life and annuities products. The report’s ABCD Vendor View presents a comparative view that visually represents at a glance the relative positions of each vendor in four dimensions: Advanced technology, Breadth of functionality, Customer base, and Depth of client services. XCelent Awards have been given to top-performing vendors in each of the four categories.
As part of the evaluation process, Celent looked at the availability of feature functionalities in the systems and how the systems interfaced with third party data providers. Most vendors had a complete set of these functionalities in production with life insurers in North America.
“The features and functionalities in the systems evaluated all help to speed policy issue and reduce costs associated with new business and underwriting processes,” says Karen Monks, Analyst with Celent’s Insurance Group and author of the report. “In the increasingly competitive and uncertain life insurance market, anything that can mitigate the time and cost of issuing a policy but maintain the appropriate level of risk will provide an advantage for insurers.”
The report covers the following vendors: Accenture, Allfinanz, CSC, Infosys, MajescoMastek, PlanetSoft, Step Solutions Group, StoneRiver, and Tata Consultancy Services, as well as reinsurance solutions from Hannover Re, Swiss Re, and Transamerica.
