On March 23th Celent gathered over 350 bankers, insurers, vendors, news media, and colleagues for our annual Innovation & Insight Day. It was held at Carnegie Hall. For the first time in I&I’s history, we literally were SRO (standing room only)! It was truly an international event in an world renowned venue - I think we had people from 18 countries in attendance. We never expected such a great response to our event (and we are still scratching our heads as to why!).

Although we had to improvise with an overflow room that streamed video of the main stage (thanks to all who helped us accommodate this nice problem), the main purpose of the day was never lost! We celebrated and learned from the winners who helped showcase best practices in implementing insurance technology and innovation from around the world. The event also afforded tremendous networking opportunities and provided an unbiased view of the hottest issues in this space today. The Insurance Team recognized fifteen model banks across five categories: Digital; Data Mastery; Legacy and Ecosystem Transformation; Innovation and Emerging Technologies; and Operational Excellence.

We produced our annual Model Insurer report which highlights all fifteen Model Insurer case studies, including our Model Insurer of the Year, LV= (from United Kingdom). Clients may download the report at Celent.com. Here is the list of Model Insurers for 2015:

Data mastery and analytics

• Celina Mutual Insurance Company: Mastering machine learning for predictive analytics
• Farm Bureau: Incorporating predictive analytics in workers compensation underwriting
• Markerstudy: Using big data analytics to compete in the UK market

Digital and omnichannel

• ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company: Complete digitalization initiative Security
• First Insurance: Developed personalized videos for homeowners policyholders
• Società Cattolica di Assicurazione: Creating an omnichannel experience called Click2Go

Innovation and emerging technologies

• Achmea Australia: Managing Farm Risk on the Farm
• American Family: Implemented a company-wide idea contest to spur mobile innovation
• Citizens Property Insurance Corporation: Building a clearinghouse to redistribute property risks

Legacy and ecosystem transformation

• MetLife: Life insurance for the middle market
• Pennsylvania Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company and Indiana Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company: Combining two affiliated insurers’ rating and policy administration platforms
• Virginia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance: Achieving results with a new end-to-end suite

Operational excellence in non-core systems implementation

• Aegon Netherlands Centralizing and leveraging document management

Operational excellence in IT Management

• Hiscox: Building a successful, continuous delivery pipeline

Model Insurer of the Year:

• LV= Fast Track innovation

In addition to our model insurer panels we had excellent keynote speakers. Debra Jasper and Betsy Hubbard of Mindset Digital used about 300 [sic] slides in 45 minutes to prod us all to rethink how we present ourselves, not just in person, but through emails and social media. One concrete hint: think about five sentence emails (five.sentenc.es). Closing out the day was Suresh Ramamurthi, the Chairman of CBW Bank, who showed us what a sub $20mm asset bank can do by completely rethinking its technology platform. And we even had a 14 year old violin prodigy, Elli Choi, kick off the event; remember, we were in Carnegie Hall! Celent also thanks our sponsors: Saffron, Mindtree, Indra, Guidewire, Wipro Digital, Inetco, and RGI Group, who together with our media partners Bank Technology News and Insurance Networking News, helped make the day a success. We’re already starting to think about next year’s event; it’s not too early to start submitting nominations. We’ll be sending out hold the date announcements shortly.