Ace buys Chubb: what it means for insurance technology

Today’s blockbuster announcement of Ace buying Chubb will have a lot of industry ramifications—some of which will play out in the IT sphere. No doubt there has already been an IT assessment element in each insurer’s due diligence efforts. Between now and the effective date of the merger, there will be a lot of planning focused on:

• Efficiencies and platform rationalization--aka “let’s figure out what is the right number of core systems, which core systems will be the survivors, and how data conversion and integration will work”
• Cloud, SaaS, data management/stores, and analytics
• Professional service and SI support capabilities that can scale to the new Chubb
• Which systems will best support a digital roadmap

Some seemingly redundant systems may survive—at least over a 1 to 3 year period. For that to happen, the business (and/or various geographies’ compliance) requirements of the operating units using these system will be too divergent or too difficult to quickly build into a single surviving system. All this reinforces the reigning market message to insurance technology firms. If you want to be around in 10 years:

• Design highly configurable and agile systems that feature ease of integration
• Have enough scale to meet the needs of bigger and bigger insurer customers—grow, merge, or wither