The Engagement Era

P&C Insurance Has Entered a New Era

This is a time of rapid and accelerating change in our industry. Read on to discover what defines this new era, why insurers should care, and what Guidewire is doing to ensure that our customers are prepared for it.

Let's start by examing what has led us here...

What systems will be required for success?

All these changes beg the question:

IT Specialist

Claims Supervisor

Customer Service Rep

Agent

Customer

Actuary

Data Analyst

Billing Supervisor

In the Engagement Era, the guiding principle for systems is to enable insurers to meet users on their own terms, to provide the experiences and journeys that they want. Rather than equating “users” solely with customers, as most commentators do, we at Guidewire define “users” to be customers, agents, and insurance knowledge workers. The Engagement Era is in its formative stage and will persist for years to come.

2015–

Welcome to the Engagement Era

Click anywhere above to close

In the second era, the principal goal of system design was to help insurers enforce standard processes and management control across the insurance lifecycle. Enter web-based systems, modular core systems, systematized business rules, and straight-through processing. It was during this phase that Guidewire came to market with our ClaimCenter product and subsequently PolicyCenter and BillingCenter—providing a suite of core systems.

late 1990s to 2015

The Process Era

In the first era of P&C technology, the focus of system design was on capturing financial data, such as premium-in-force, policy limits, claim reserves, and many other examples. Mainframe systems became prevalent, helping to reduce paperwork and ensure adequate processing performance but hamstrung due to these systems’ inflexible and monolithic design and neglect for the needs of end users.

1970 to mid-1990s

The Transaction Era

1970 to Mid-1990s

The Transaction Era

Late 1990s to 2015

The Process Era

2015–

A New Era

We recently interviewed a group of young business owners in New York City and asked them about their expectations when engaging with their insurers. You can see their feedback by watching this short video.

24/7 Self-service

Today’s users expect information at their fingertips, such as agents looking to service a policy, or underwriters assessing the risk of a given policy.

Personalized Products

From products and pricing to how they are serviced, the expectation is that everything is customized and not one-size-fits-all.

Intuitive User Experience

A consumer-like experience with intuitive and dynamic screens is necessary to meet users on their terms.

Real-Time Response

Policyholders, knowledge workers, and agents alike expect rapid response, fast answers, and quick reaction regardless of the channel.

Fast Claims Settlements

During the greatest time of need for a policyholder, the ability to quickly and seamlessly engage all parties from vendors to adjusters provides for rapid claims resolution.

What do today's users expect?

24/7 Self-service

Personalized Products

Intuitive User Experience

Real-Time Response

Fast Claims Settlements

The system must support core operations, data and analytics, and digital engagement in a cohesive, orchestrated manner.

All users must have a consistent and efficient journey across a variety of channels and across the entire insurance lifecycle.

Users must have an interactive and rewarding experience on all devices and platforms.

Systems must apply data, machine learning, and context to guide processes and decision-making.

Systems must be interoperable with other components and systems.

Unified Core/Data/ Digital

Omni- Channel Design

Consumer Grade UX

Predictive, Guided Processes

API-Driven Design

And just what technology is required to fulfill their expectations?

Channels

Digital Experience solutions need to support a variety of channels and engagement modes.

Engagement Modes

There are three engagement modes: self-service, assisted service with the help of a call center or agent/broker, or a service completely delegated to an agent or broker.

Operational Systems

Operational Systems must support the journeys for both transactional and analytical purposes.

Journeys

Designing for user engagement starts with user journeys that focus on user-specific objectives.

Agents or brokers managing leads or processing renewals

Vendors wanting to deliver services and get paid for them

Consumers researching and buying insurance or making adjustments to their coverage over time

Commercial customers managing their claims or reducing their risk

Operational Systems

Integration

Operational Systems must support the journeys for both transactional and analytical purposes. In fact, they must support all of the permutations of channels, engagement modes, journeys, and integrations that make up the total engagement experience that we aspire to support.

Channels

Engagement Modes

Journeys

Digital Experience solutions need to support a variety of channels and engagement modes for each journey.

These journeys require seamless integration between Digital Experience solutions and Operational Systems of record.

Designing for user engagement starts with user journeys that focus on user-specific objectives.

Agents or brokers managing leads or processing renewals

Vendors wanting to deliver services and get paid for them

Consumers researching and buying insurance or making adjustments to their coverage over time

Commercial customers managing their claims or reducing their risk

Anatomy of an Engagement Era System

Easy FNOL from anywhere

Self-service policy changes

Quick quoting with minimal data entry

On-Demand and Interactive Analytics from InfoCenter

360° Account View across Policy, Billing and Claims

Dashboard highlighting work-in-progress and priority activities

Digital + Core = Better Experience for Agents

Spotlight Risk Evaluation

Underwriting Management and Agent Collaboration

Risk Scoring for Claims Escalation

A warning appears on the claim summary screen, and the Bodily Injury exposure shows “High Risk” of escalation

The rating worksheet shows the Predictive Analytics adjustment factor in the calculation of premiums along with existing rate modifiers

Automatically increase or decrease the calculated premium based on Predictive Analytics rating factors

Predictive Rate Adjustment

View shared timeline of all policyholder account activity

Claims Supervisor

Pricing Actuary

Customer Service Representative

Customer

Agent

Underwriter

Click below to see how.

At Guidewire we are designing and building our products to meet the demands of the Engagement Era.

Learn more about Guidewire's vision of the Engagement Era by watching this short video of CEO and founder Marcus Ryu.

Why Insurers Should Care

* Tanguy Catlin, Somesh Khanna, Johannes-Tobiaz Lorenz, and Sandra Sancier-Sultan, “Making digital strategy a reality in insurance,” September 2016, McKinsey & Company.

Consulting firm McKinsey answered this well in a report published in September 2016.* According to McKinsey’s research, insurers in the top quartile of technology investment are growing twice as fast as their less advanced peers. At the same time, they are delivering better profitability, with the top quartile (in terms of technology investment) having a combined ratio 6% less than their peers.

This is how insurance employees typically spend their time.

45%

Basic Processing Tasks

35%

Procedural Compliance

15%

Interaction Tasks

Best Practice Evaluation

Expert Evaluation

Data Entry/Clerical File Work Answering Queries Standard Correspondence

Enforcement of Process Steps File Documentation Assignment

Issue Resolution Vendor Performance Management Negotiation

Underwriting/Claims Judgement Medical Evaluation Liability Judgement

Complex Underwriting Large Losses Litigation Strategy Employee Mentorship

However, by adopting Engagement Era systems, which are optimized to make insurance employees more efficient and effective, insurers will gain time that can be invested in more strategic work, so that workers can better apply their expertise and experience, and so that personal interactions can offer additional value. In addition to freeing up time, the morale of workers will increase—which itself will result in better quality of service to policyholders and agents.

Insurance employees spend far too much of their time on repetitive, mundane work that offers little value to the policyholder or agent. Guidewire’s Value Consulting team has worked on more than 300 engagements over the last decade. Based on this experience, we estimate that 80% of workers’ time is spent on basic tasks and compliance.

Elevating the Work of Insurers

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to learn more about the Engagement Era and how Guidewire Software can help insurers like you, please fill out the following form and we will get in touch.

www.guidewire.com