Ensuring a better insurance market with InsurTech

The insurance industry historically has been characterized by manual processes, large agent-based sales forces, and slow, arbitrary and contentious claims processing.

Increasingly, industry participants are using technology to automate the business. Myriad technology solutions add value for carriers, brokers, and insureds by improving underwriting efficiency, product quality, and claims processing speed and accuracy and by reducing insurance portfolio risk.

We group these solutions into four categories based on their primary focuses: sales and underwriting, policy administration, claims processing, and risk management, and we highlight some of the interesting technology providers in each group.

Historically, the insurance industry has been characterized by manual processes, large agent-based sales forces, and slow, arbitrary and contentious claims processing (prompting the infamous industry acronym DDD: “deny, dispute, defend”). While the underlying insurance products are already highly profitable, carriers and administrators increasingly see an opportunity to boost profitability from underwriting and servicing policies by improving operational efficiency and accuracy.

Numerous technology solutions have been used by carriers and adjusters to manage insurance life cycle workflow. These platforms initially started out as workflow management solutions but have grown to encompass general automation of common insurance tasks. San Mateo, Calif.-based Guidewire Software (GWRE) provides software that enables major insurers to manage the life cycle of their business. Originally a perpetual license software solution, Guidewire now is a cloud-based solution that becomes the core insurance transactional system of record, managing insurance product definition, distribution, underwriting, policyholder services, and claims management for carriers and administrators.