The word ‘Insurtech’ has been in common use for a few years now. We tend to think that insurtech is all about creating better customer journeys, putting ideas to market quickly, being agile in the way you work and having the ability to move faster than insurers who have more ‘traditional’ insurance software.
And yes, it is good to be able to create a new customer experience with sleek web pages or mobile phone apps, to ask Alexa to check your policy wording, and to have automated robots taking details of claims and paying out in record time.
However, as well as those offerings, at the core of any MGA or insurer there is still a requirement for an end-to-end policy administration system – a place where products are defined, with capability to store and update information about policies and claims, plus a rating engine and an accounting solution.
RDT’s Group Product Owner Shahin Amir-Ebrahimi touches on this in his opinion piece in this month’s Insurance Times magazine.
He writes: ‘Some established insurance software providers have created all-encompassing end-to-end solutions, while many newer suppliers offer specialist solutions to improve the process within a small area of the value chain. This can make it hard to know what will be the most flexible way to structure your technology so it can adapt to the changing needs of your business.’
Vital policy administration systems can seem cumbersome, but with the right mindset and capabilities they needn’t be rigid or unwieldy.
We have developed APIs so that clients can tap into our software platforms at key points during their quote-and-buy and claims journeys. We have also developed ‘test and trial’ – a way for clients to spin up new products quickly and easily so they can test their popularity and underwriting before taking them to market. More recently, we have also developed capabilities that enable a customer to speak to Alexa about their insurance policy.
RDT works with agile methodologies to deliver software swiftly to its clients. The ethos behind this way of working is to have highly collaborative teams developing software in increments of deliverable work. This ‘building block’ approach means that digital enhancements can swiftly be added to our platforms, and tailored to client requirements.
By being an insurtech enabler, RDT has the platforms insurers and MGAs need, as well as the capabilities to fulfil all their insurance technology requirements.