Bill Dochterman, Vice President, Marketing and Product Management, Insurity

“Carriers should focus their attention on improving the features and functions available to the agents that sell their products.”

Welcome Bill. What is your take on what was behind last year’s successes?

Successful STP and/or data integration projects tend to share common themes including realistic, and achievable objectives given the challenges posed by existing systems; well-understood legacy environments including data definitions; sufficient technical expertise; commitment to industry standard data and transaction standards; as well as vendor support services, project team approach, and overall team culture.

And critical next steps?

Carriers should focus their attention on improving the features and functions available to the agents that sell their products. Deploying the rich new portal capabilities now available that allow for new business origination and policy servicing will ensure that carriers remain competitive. Another important development is the shift carriers are making away from business process optimization projects to focus on more strategic opportunities. As market leaders look for game-changing moves related to business models optimization and outsourcing non-value creating parts of their supply chain, other carriers will begin to follow suit for fear of being left behind.

Exciting advancements?

One of the simpler but more exciting developments now unfolding is the emphasis carriers are placing on the cost-effective delivery of technology solutions to their business units. While conceptually this may seem rather mundane, the implications are significant. More carrier IT departments are asking business units to justify why a particular process modification is necessary and to provide cost justification prior to agreeing to such system enhancements requests.

What is the one message you would leave with insurance companies?

As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, technologies have advanced to bring together disparate components of the traditional IVC. Today consumers, agents, brokers, carriers, and supply chain partners can all participate in the creation of a single stream of data, which provides tremendous utility and results not only in lower costs but also in time efficiencies. For the first time, technologies that make STP possible are a reality. With that said, carriers must adopt new practices and approaches to optimize business processes and focus on real innovation.