In a highly competitive market, insurance companies can gain competitive advantage by becoming ‘intelligent insurers’, which means making the best use of data to improve internal efficiencies, driving great customer service, and ensuring regulatory compliance through accurate and timely reporting – all of which can be achieved by moving to the cloud.
For any big business that uses a variety of legacy systems, moving to the cloud involves a significant change and investment. Many insurance companies have a vision for data usage and advanced analytics, but are hampered by old technology and are unsure of how to make the transition.
Red Olive hosts roundtables for the insurance and financial services industry with discussions on the process of moving to the cloud, data governance, real time analytics, the speed with which data is analysed and included in reporting, and much more.
Common insurance data issues
A common issue that has come up in discussions from previous roundtables is that a company can make an investment in the right tools, but use the wrong approach. Sometimes companies have been through mergers or acquisitions and are still trying to find out which system to use – or whether to run two completely different systems alongside each other to avoid the pain of change.
At other times, when data professionals enter a new role in a company, they are faced with technology solutions that aren’t joined up or do not deliver the results they want to see, but they have to find a way to make it work as the finance department wants to see a return on their investment.
One attendee from a previous Red Olive insurance roundtable meeting said: “If the business has spent £250,000 on a system, they want you to see out the ROI period, so, you must work with what you have until the next strategy period, or when the technology is up for renewal. It is a tough position to be in.”
Another attendee stated: “There are new analytics tools coming to market all the time from smaller vendors, so you can spend your whole time picking your way through vendor management and matching them with your own roadmap for the company. It is an expensive thing to get wrong.”
Getting the cloud right
Moving to the cloud requires working towards a solution that allows the best use of millions of data points collected daily, to maximise returns on current systems, while taking advantage of faster, more efficient and streamlined reporting. Moving to the cloud can gift commercial efficiencies to insurance companies, resulting in clear, competitive advantages.
The important thing is to plan your architectural strategy as soon as possible and make sure that any changes or new technology fit with that strategy. If you can, consider looking five to ten years ahead at least.
Red Olive has significant insurance industry expertise, and can help you with the process of moving to the cloud, from start to finish. Having worked with a number of commercial insurance companies, it has direct experience to apply to projects, such as implementing cloud solutions. This combination of skills and expertise has made Red Olive unique in the market.
Toby Warren, Claims Data Product Owner at Admiral Insurance, said, “Red Olive has been instrumental in the success of our ongoing project. We had Mark from Red Olive in our team for 18 months – he had all the right experience and knowledge and was able to challenge us and offer advice as well as have the practical skills to get things done. His extensive skills really helped us to do things as well as possible and he – and the wider Red Olive team – delivered exceptional value.”
For companies within the insurance and financial services sector and who have a variety of legacy systems, moving to the cloud can present some challenges and require significant changes and investment. Red Olive can help with this process from start to finish. You can learn more about this by contacting us, or by attending our quarterly roundtables where we discuss many of the questions your company might have about the process of moving to the cloud.
If you are interested in joining us for our next round table, email [email protected] and we will send you details about forthcoming events. If you are looking for more clarity on getting more value from your existing data or moving to the cloud, read our case study on how Red Olive has helped Admiral move to Google Cloud.
