What European Insurers Think

Life insurance companies have different perspectives in terms of policy administration systems (PAS). Expectations are different geographically and IT vendors must adapt to insurers needs if they want to be successful in the long run not only in a dedicated market but on a larger European scale. "Getting The Value from Life Policy Administration Systems: The European Insurer Perspective" is the title of a report Celent is about to publish that provides key information not only for IT vendors but also for insurers desiring to understand what their peers experience on the market.

49 insurers from 20 different European countries have contributed to provide their evaluation of various life policy administration systems offered on the market. Celent has classified the respondents in three geographical categories (UK, Continental Europe and Eastern Europe) and tried to identify what were the main differences in terms of value perceived by companies in each region.

The above chart shows clearly some important differences in terms of new technology adoption between regions. For instance, it seems that UK insurers are in advance in terms of PAS replacement. Indeed, around 80% of them have been using their PAS for more than 3 years. Celent thinks that this figure demonstrates clearly that UK companies are a step ahead in terms of core applications replacement and modernization. In addition, it might also be a good proof that UK insurance companies have a higher acceptance of value of buy over the build approach. This figure also demonstrates that Eastern European insurers are currently adopting new technology. In opposite to insurers based in the UK, the majority of Eastern European companies having contributed to our survey have been using their PAS for less than 12 months. In other words, it seems that Eastern European based insurance companies are currently in the process of upgrading their core applications to new technologies. Finally, there are laggards in Continental Europe. If we trust the sample of our participating companies based in Continental Europe, it seems that there is a clear difference between insurers having already replaced their PAS (almost two thirds of the respondents from this region) and the ones that have just completed this exercise during the last 12 months period.

For those of you who are interested in what life insurers think about policy administration systems and IT vendors on the European market, I invite you to read my report.