Insurance Newsletter: February 2018

Perceived wisdom would suggest that insurance systems should be “bought and not built.” After all, why reinvent the wheel when there is a perfectly good solution commercially available?

In some niche areas of the market, this view may be, as a result of increased digital ambitions, the sheer complexity of legacy modernization, and a fundamental shift in the economics of new development. Rather than buying existing market solutions for new digital ventures, a bold few are choosing to “build” (or more likely “assemble”) all or part of their future applications. This is no longer purely a startup phenomenon. Even a few large insurance players are switching to a build/assemble mind-set for launching their most innovative greenfield ventures. The desire for speed, low cost, access to the latest technology, and control of the digital engagement journey is behind these motivations.

In February, we published a couple of reports that explore this phenomenon. The New Recipe That Is Changing Insurance investigates the impact of customer-centered design, agile methods, and modern technical approaches to the ability to significantly reduce the cost of delivery and improve speed to market. Designing solutions to meet customer expectations is a critical skill; we explored what it’s like to walk in the customer’s shoes last week at our client roundtable in New York.

The New Build vs. Buy Debate explores the impact on the traditional core system landscape. With this one, we will be holding a roundtable in March in London to solicit your feedback. It should be an engaging debate, and we will return to it later this year as fresh solutions emerge from the world of insurtech. Additionally, we will be hosting a webinar on this topic on 14 March.

Finally, I’d like to remind you to register for 2018’s Innovation & Insight Day scheduled for 24 April in Boston. The team has been working hard on evaluating more than 130 submissions and is just about finished. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the quality this year, and can’t wait for the event so that we can share some of these distinguished client stories.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Jamie Macgregor
Senior Vice President
@JamieMacgregorC