David Fenimore, EVP, Engineering and CIO, Insurance Technologies

“The key to ongoing success is attacking STP initiatives in implementation phases, with planned and recognizable milestones for communication.”

Welcome David. Your take on what was done right last year?

Last year was an exciting and enlightening year as it relates to STP. Success has come for those companies that did not overlook the overall impact front office-centric STP has versus back-office STP initiatives. It is critical to emphasize sales expansion and information integrity early in an STP process flow, which ultimately translates into more new business “in good order.” We’ve also learned that success resides in the ability to aggregate data from multiple carriers into a single platform, for example. Enabling higher levels of personalization through self-service portals is another example of STP that begins in the front office. Any STP effort that creates value and leads to a better understanding of clients will help ensure success.

Next steps?

Critical next steps must be taken to ensure that internal processes that can benefit from STP are well aligned. Clear business benefits must be identified so that the stakeholders in STP initiatives are also in alignment. The availability of technology to enable STP is already present within the marketplace, so it’s not about technology; it’s about internal alignment with key stakeholders and achieving buy-in to strategically place TCO and ROI on STP initiatives throughout implementation. Without these two components coming together for consideration and communication, STP will not be accepted across an organization.

Advancements?

Some of the exciting advancements are those solutions that help clients address suitability in concert with STP. That is, suitability not only as part of the order fulfillment process, but as part of the overall product selection process. In addition, there is tremendous potential around improving the overall customer experience through technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight and AJAX for faster application response times.

Your message to insurance companies?

Select one or two partners that can help you achieve benefit-oriented STP success through rapid adoption. Insurers should not listen to the hype typically expressed through buzzwords, but rather identify strategic partners and work with them to recognize success through phased completion. In order to be successful there has to be a program plan in place with clear business benefits defined. The key to ongoing success is attacking STP initiatives in implementation phases, with planned and recognizable milestones for communication.