Escaping the Annus Horribilis: Insurer Views on IT and Business Strategies Moving Forward

For insurers, 2010 should be a year of “getting back to business.” Insurers will be actively preparing for a flurry of investments, with an eye toward meeting future challenges.

In a new report, Escaping the Annus Horribilis: Insurer Views on IT and Business Strategies Moving Forward, Celent looks back on 2009 and reviews how insurers’ attitudes and behaviours changed over the four quarters. The report is based on a Celent survey that examined how insurers are responding to changing market conditions and their expectations about the impact of the crisis.

As the depth of the recession became clearer as the year unfolded, so did the severity of the insurers’ responses. “In Q1 2009, most respondents thought changing strategies and large-scale staff reductions were unlikely,” says Catherine Stagg-Macey, Senior Analyst with Celent’s Insurance group and coauthor of the report. “But when the severity of the crisis set in, many companies had to make hard decisions. Now on reflection, and with some better insight as to where we are in the economic recovery, it is apparent that most companies bit the bullet and made the hard decisions mid-year.”


“If there is a single lesson for insurers from 2009, it’s the importance of an agile and flexible IT operation that supports rapid response to unpredictable operating conditions,” says Craig Weber, Senior Vice President of Celent’s Insurance group and coauthor of the report. “The legacy drag effect was felt by many, and this undoubtedly helped support renewed vigor in IT investment programs.”

In addition to looking at insurer views on the current quarter and a year out along several categories, such as job security, the report looks in some detail at the investment hotspots for 2010 and IT budgets. The report is the final in a series of four tracking perceptions during 2009.