Asia-Pacific Policy Administration Systems 2013: Life, Annuities, and Health ABCD Vendor View

Navigating the market of life and pension policy administration system vendors remains a difficult task. Celent profiles a majority of the life and pension insurance administration systems available in the Asia-Pacific region today.

In a new report Asia-Pacific Policy Administration Systems 2013: Life, Annuities, and Health ABCD Vendor View, Celent looks at the policy administration systems available to life insurers in the region. This report is part of a series on policy administration systems (PAS) in Europe, the United States, and Asia.

As a group, vendors continue to make important advances in usability and personalization. Many have added or upgraded web-based portal interfaces that benefit customer service representatives, underwriters, and different distribution forces. System administration capabilities for configuring products, rules, workflow, document management, and user interfaces have also improved.

Expanded PAS functionality and improved technology mean that insurers continue to have a wide spectrum of systems and vendors to consider when they are looking for a solution to fit their needs.

There is no single best policy administration solution for all insurers. There are a number of good choices for an insurer with almost any set of requirements.

“Insurers seeking a new core policy administration system should begin the process by looking inward,” says Wenli Yuan, Senior Analyst with Celent's Asian Financial Services Group and author of the report. “Insurers should seek to understand and weigh the capabilities of each vendor and each solution.”

The Asia-Pacific IT vendor landscape is increasingly difficult to navigate and, for insurers, the selection of a PAS requires the analysis of different parameters of varying importance. Celent recommends that insurers define and rank their priorities when reviewing this important question

This report is not intended to provide an insurer with all the tools they need to choose the “right” policy administration system, though it can help an insurer take the first steps toward shortening a long list.

Celent profiles 22 policy administration systems in Asia Pacific, with 9 full profiles and 13 limited profiles, using its ABCD Vendor View, which is a standard representation of a vendor marketplace designed to show at a glance the relative positions of each vendor in four categories: Advanced technology, Breadth of functionality, Customer base, and Depth of client services.