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Archive for the ‘eBusiness’ Category

More on iPad as Insurance Business Platform

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I’ve expanded on some of my original thoughts in this post on the iPad as Insurance Business Platform in this column in Insurance Networking News.

Unlike a laptop or a phone, an iPad is a good platform for entering short pieces of data or selecting from menus in an interactive form from the field. The screen real estate and text-input option is superior to both a smartphone and a stylus-based tablet, and it doesn’t require resting on a surface like a laptop. Once the camera-enabled versions emerge, both still and video image capture will enable field personnel to incorporate rich data into these forms, including audio signatures from customers or claimants validating information.

Posted in IT Strategy, Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0, eBusiness | No Comments »

iPad as Insurance Business Platform?

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

After a week at ACORD/LOMA, I’m starting to believe that the iPad is a real business platform (and not just the most popular booth raffle giveaway of the year!) Having one on hand to display slides in intimate meetings and review documents was excellent, but the real surprise was the number of CIOs carrying them and thinking about combining them with virtual desktops to enable field personnel and reduce hardware expenses (especially relative to laptop costs).

The iPad may be the best example of the “shareable small screen” – it’s very easy to pass back and forth in a personal meeting in a way that a laptop is not. This could well be a step towards solving the “kitchen table” problem that has bedeviled insurer’s field technology roll-outs for the last 20 years. Stay tuned…

(PS: I was pretty sure I wasn’t making up the category “shareable small screen”, but I googled it on Friday May 28 and got no examples of prior use. So maybe I am…)

Posted in Distribution, Innovation, Insurance, eBusiness | 1 Comment »

Planning for Straight-Through Processing in Annuities

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Straight-Through Processing (STP) continues to be embraced by major insurance carriers. Some of the primary reasons include: improved efficiencies that come with electronic submission, a reduction in not in good order rates (NIGO), and improved relationships with 3rd party distribution resulting from cooperation on STP initiatives. But while STP remains a priority, usage of STP has been modest over the past 3 years.

My new report, Planning for Straight-Through Processing in Annuities, is designed to give Life and Annuity operations executives and staff a high-level holistic view of STP and prospects for the future. It draws on years of practical experience, reviews of published articles, and conversations with insurance carrier executives. The report summary is online at http://www.novarica.com/report_stp_annuities.shtml.

Posted in Insurance, Press releases, eBusiness | 1 Comment »

E-business is not about “work” — it’s about results

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

At The Life Conference this week, there was an overview presentation about operations and technology trends that contrasted the “old world,” in which the carrier did all the data entry work for customers and agents, to the “new world,” in which this work is pushed out to the customers and agents. The presenter seemed to marvel at this, and shrug that hey, if that was what people wanted, that was OK, but it seemed strange to him.

Here’s the thing: e-commerce is not about the “work” — it’s about the results.

If agents or customers can get a quote or policy issued ASAP, they don’t mind doing data entry to get those results. What they don’t like is doing data entry and not getting anything for their efforts.

Similarly, customers like online self-service because they are in control. They see the information they want, when they want. They can interact with it, and they can do it all without using a call center rep. Unless call center reps are providing advice, they basically serve as an inefficient human interface layer to the company’s systems, translating voice to synaptic signals, to typing, to visual input, back to synaptic signals, and back to voice again.

Companies launching or improving their e-business systems should think less about who’s doing how much work and more about who’s getting how much value in terms of convenience, improved response time, and general efficiency.

PS, if it’s not the user getting the value, it’s not going to work.

Posted in Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0, Webinars, eBusiness | 1 Comment »

Life/Annuity Agent Portals: Current State and Key Issues

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

My new report on Life/Annuity Agent Portals has been posted. The report provides an overview of key issues related to deploying and maximizing the benefits of agent and advisor portals, including lists of “must have” and “nice to have” key features. It is based on direct interviews with leading insurers, survey data, and other sources.

Posted in Distribution, IT Strategy, Insurance, eBusiness | 1 Comment »

Make a Social Networking Policy Your New Years Resolution

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

More and more carriers are successfully using social media – Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and blogs – to build their brand and generate revenue. But many carriers think social media is risky business. The biggest fear factors concern how use of social media at work reduces productivity, the potential increase in computer viruses hitting the IT infrastructure, and that uncontrolled posted content may damage a carrier’s reputation or even lead to regulatory intervention.

Even those carriers who have chosen not to use social media have employees who are using social media in their personal life. What employees post from home can influence how others view your company and can impact the company’s brand. If you don’t already have a social media policy in place, make this a New Years resolution to get in place quickly.

Companies already have policies in place covering employee communications via email or the telephone. A social media policy is really just an extension of those existing policies to include online sites.

How do you get started?

The Agents Council on Technology just published a new guide – Creating A Social Web Policy For Your Independent Agency. The guide provides information to help create an appropriate corporate policy for an agency. It’s a pretty good starting point for carriers as well and includes links to some great resources – such as the social networking policies of IBM, Dell and Intel. Or, if you’re looking for even more, google ’sample social media policy’ and you’ll get 257 million hits.

Posted in Distribution, Insurance, Web 2.0, eBusiness | No Comments »

New Video Interview: Agent Portals and Web 2.0

Monday, December 14th, 2009

New video interview with I&T on Agent Portals and Web 2.0.

Posted in Distribution, IT Strategy, Insurance, Web 2.0, eBusiness | No Comments »

More Notes from CIO Insurance Summit

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

More good workshops and conversations yesterday at the CIO Insurance Summit, including some great discussions of agent-facing technology, legacy transformation, and outsourcing. Perhaps surprisingly for a “technology” event, across all three of these areas, the importance of personal engagement and relationships shown through.

One of the highlights of the agent-facing technology discussions was the importance of engaging with the CSRs at independent agencies when designing agent portals. As our small commercial agents study shows, CSRs have their own preferences and needs in agent portal design, and for some small commercial lines especially, the CSR can be influential in determining where business gets placed. One super-regional carrier who presented a case study actually has a CSR council in addition to an agent council, which not only lets them learn what CSRs like, but builds a direct relationship with these important stakeholders.

Among the many discussions related to legacy transformation was a case study from a super-regional P/C insurer, showing how a $30 million, 4-year investment enabled the company to write an additional $200 million in business once the transformation was complete. Like all true transformations, this one was quite disruptive for the organization, and the initiative was only possible because the CIO and CEO had the same vision, goal, and commitment. This strong relationship was the necessary pre-condition for being able to successfully attempt this transformation..

Outsourcing/managed services discussions focused more on capabilities enhancement and the ability to focus internal resources more strategically rather pure cost savings. For many CIOs, maintenance of legacy applications (especially during a transformation project!), testing, and even DBA work are being shifted to external service providers, while internal teams remain focused on developing and supporting strategic applications.

But what struck me about the sourcing discussions, both in presentations and in side conversations, was the efforts being devoting to build personal relationships with these external partner teams, including sending internal staff to visit offshore sites and proving opportunities for teams to mix socially. It really underlined the importance of building cohesive project teams, no matter what color badge the team members wear.

I’m looking forward to today’s discussions on Social Networking and Innovation, and to tonight’s reception.

Posted in Conferences, Distribution, IT Strategy, Insurance, Outsourcing, Wealth Management, Webinars, eBusiness | No Comments »

New Wealth Mgt Case Study: TradeKing

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

With the majority of the mass market and mass affluent investing public poised to move to a self-service environment to manage their investments, Novarica’s wealth management group has published a case study on one of the online investment industry’s biggest success stories, TradeKing.

The case study highlights their competitive strategy in terms of client segments and products, and the roles of customer service, education and social networking capabilities to create a compelling value proposition for their target client segments. Other online brokerage firms, as well as other financial services firms outside wealth management, can learn from TradeKing’s use of social networking to boost profitability.

Posted in Innovation, Wealth Management, eBusiness | No Comments »

Health Reports: Data Mastery and Direct Distribution

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Novarica is pleased to announce the publication of its first reports specifically focused on health insurers.

The first report, Health Insurers and Data Management: Preparing for an Even More Digital Future, is based on a survey conducted this spring of 27 US health insurers about their readiness for personal electronic health records and their levels of control over their own data infrastructures. The report highlights the continuing investment in business intelligence and data repositories, but notes that enterprise data models and data governance is still lagging at many health insurers.

The second report is an executive brief on Online Direct Distribution in US Health Insurance. With possible changes looming in health insurers’ abilities to underwrite individual business, efficiency will become even more important. This brief provides a snapshot of the current state of online sales and outlines some of the issues for the near future.

Posted in Distribution, Health Insurance, IT Spending, eBusiness | No Comments »

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