In an interview with El Asegurador, Alicia Guido, Practice Director, Charles Taylor InsureTech shared her perspective on how to manage and enable digital channels to implement more robust and simplified processes.

To read the Spanish version of this interview please click here. (Para leer la versión en español de esta entrevista, haga clic aquí.)

El Asegurador Periodico (EAP): From your point of view, how has the growth of the insurance sector been in recent years?

Alicia Guido (AG): In the last decade, the insurance sector has been growing significantly. However, a growth of 11 percent was seen until 2019 Mexican and Brazilian markets have shown the highest growth.

EAP: In that sense, how could we define the state of technological adoption and the adaptation of the insurance market to circumstances such as the pandemic?

(AG): Definitely very fast-paced. Despite the slowdown in the market, Insurtech did continue to invest very heavily to materialize the different visions that the sector had, and obviously with the lockdowns and restrictions that were imposed on all businesses, including those in LATAM, insurers had to start migrating to appropriate technological platforms to continue serving their market and achieve their growth objectives. From the point of view of Insurtech, I think it was very good to generate that investment in advance, to accelerate and make the tools available to the sector enabling digital channels and having more robust and simplified processes, covering all the casuistry that an operation like this can include. I think that was the trigger that allowed insurers to take the step and leverage technological evolution for the market to operate and continue moving forward.

EAP: It is very interesting the topic you say, we are seeing the emergence of many Insuretech businesses that are focused on the first process of the sector, which is sales. Outside of this need to sell, what kind of solutions does the sector need to improve its management and optimize its processes?

(AG): I think one of the main ones is to get out of obsolescence. Insurers do have to eliminate the risk of technology that no longer have support and migrate to platforms that already give them greater flexibility and allow them to grow at the speed they require, with a very solid information security foundation. Strengthening its digital channels continues to be a very important one, because the behavior of the insurance consumer has also had to change due to the evolution that 2020 brought us; and finally, I believe that insurers have the challenge of configuring their products in a more agile and fast way, and to be able to sophisticate the offer that the market is demanding today.

EAP: Landing on the solutions offered by Charles Taylor in the face of these needs of the sector, what is INSIS and what differentiates it from other technologies?

(AG): INSIS is a platform that manages the processes of an insurer from end to end. One of the advantages is that we have a solution that is multi-branch in which we configure products in all its ranges. It is also a tool in which it is constantly being invested, from the point of view of technological architecture and best practices to keep it ranked as one of those that are at the forefront. Another relevant advantage that is crucial for the sector at the moment, is its integration capacity, which allows us to connect very easily with the ecosystem of our customers, or with third-party tools that are critical for their day-to-day operations. Being a service company, we are dedicated to implementing the platform for our customers and thereby it gives us an advantage at a consultative level. We run a very solid team of experts in the insurance sector, that have a strong knowledge of the software.

EAP: How does the exercise of machine learning, AI and predictive models involve these processes?

(AG): We are evolving from several angles. The new versions already bring machine learning components, which is empowering us mainly in the function of attention to claims; we have involved all these processes in which we can, for example, make a massive analysis of images. What we look for is that the ruling processes get faster and more accurate. From the point of view of how we handle the information that is being generated in INSIS, we have the possibility of seeing how our client is doing, how it affects its behavior and therefore make that differential treatment both in prospecting and in attention.

EAP: What is the advantage of having predictive tools that are able to adapt to the DNA of companies?

(AG): INSIS is a tool that already has immersed market practices that are optimal for the entire range of processes. When we talk about the DNA of companies, we talk about that there is a way in which we are going to model those practices towards the competitive advantages of our customers and that they fall naturally, since we configure it in such a way that we do not touch the essence of the process or that best practice. We have the ability to configure very specific coverages depending on the branch or sector to which we want to direct it and the rules of the business, that is where this concept of DNA mainly resides, how we take the seal of our client to the best practice of INSIS and this is where our advisory arm comes in.

EAP: Charles Taylor is characterized by providing integral solutions, what services accompany the implementation of INSIS?

(AG): We have consulting services to simplify and consolidate, for example, the product portfolio of customers so that they can meet the demand they have and so that they can manage and maintain it over time in a simple way. Subsequently, we lead them to the adoption of operational best practices.The implementations of platforms in the insurance sector are generally very complex, they can be accompanied by data migrations, and you have to take all that accumulated history over the years to the new platform; for that need we can also provide solutions. We help the exploitation of information with business intelligence solutions, we can integrate with other solutions and our most specific for fraud detection, enabling digital channels or brokerage functions. A differential that we have is that we also take care, if the client so decides, of assembling the infrastructure in which all this platform will run in the cloud and manage its services.

EAP: What results have these companies, that have INSIS, obtained?

(AG): One of the advantages that our customers have is that today they already have a robust platform that allows them to manage their operation in a consolidated way in a secure tool and which we can evolve with the market, from the point of view of the architecture that supports it or integrating cutting-edge capabilities such as machine learning or artificial intelligence. In terms of ease of maintenance, if they have to make any adjustments in the operation, they can do it by themselves and it is an important advantage that they can advance at the speed they require.