Duck Creek Earns 2026 XCelent Awards: What It Says About the Future of Claims

Claims modernization is entering a different phase.

Digitizing claims processes was an important step. But as AI becomes more capable and claims organizations face continued pressure to improve speed, accuracy, efficiency, and outcomes, insurers need more than another layer of technology. They need intelligence to become part of how claims work gets done.

That’s why we believe Duck Creek’s recognition in Celent’s Claims Systems Vendors: North America P&C Insurance, 2026 report is worth a closer look. Read the announcement →

Duck Creek Claims achieved a Luminary rating, the highest possible rating, in Celent’s Technical Capabilities Matrix, and earned XCelent Awards for Advanced Technology and Breadth of Functionality. Celent describes Duck Creek Claims as “a powerful claims solution that uses modern technology and offers comprehensive features.”

For us, the significance isn’t any one capability. It’s how data, intelligence, automation, and claims expertise come together within the workflow where decisions are made.

The claims system is no longer just where claims are managed. It’s becoming the foundation for how claims organizations understand, decide, and act.

What Should Insurers Expect from a Modern Claims Management System?

A modern claims management system should do more than digitize the claims lifecycle. It should help claims organizations put the right information, intelligence, and automation into the workflow while keeping experienced professionals focused on the decisions that require their expertise.

Duck Creek Claims supports that model across the claim’s lifecycle, connecting intake, workflows, data, intelligence, automation, and core claims processing in one environment.

From there, data and intelligence help teams understand the claim earlier, determine where attention is needed, and move appropriate work forward without adding more disconnected tools to the adjuster’s day.

The opportunity isn’t simply to automate more claims work. It’s to make the claims operation more intelligent, using data, automation, and context to help determine what needs attention, what should happen next, and where human expertise matters most.

What Does a Luminary Rating Say About a Modern Claims Platform?

Celent awarded Duck Creek Claims a Luminary rating in its Technical Capabilities Matrix, recognizing the combination of technology sophistication and breadth of functionality behind the platform.

For insurers, that combination matters. Claims organizations don’t operate through a single workflow or technology. A claim moves across multiple stages, systems, data sources, specialists, and external partners, and each step depends on what happened before it.

Our view is that modern claims technology must be strong on both sides of that equation: deep enough to support the complexity of the claims lifecycle and sophisticated enough to connect the data, intelligence, and automation that move each claim forward.

Duck Creek Claims brings those dimensions together across the end-to-end claim’s lifecycle. Configurable workflows and automated assignment route work; embedded intelligence supports triage, fraud detection, and decision-making; Clarity Data Foundation provides real-time claims and financial visibility; and integrations connect Policy, Billing, and specialized claims services around the process.

Together, those capabilities create a platform capable of supporting both the range and complexity of modern claims operations. The platform is also built for enterprise scale, with more than 30 million claims processed through Duck Creek OnDemand and demonstrated scale of 60,000+ claims per day during CAT events.

The opportunity isn’t simply to modernize the claims system. It’s to bring breadth and technical sophistication together, supporting the complexity of the claims lifecycle while putting better data, intelligence, and automation into the work.

What Does Advanced Technology Look Like in Claims?

Celent awarded Duck Creek an XCelent Award for Advanced Technology, recognizing the technology capabilities behind Duck Creek Claims.

For insurers, advanced technology matters most when it changes what claims teams can do; helping them understand a claim earlier, identify where attention is needed, and act with greater context.

Celent’s assessment highlights several Duck Creek examples, including AI-powered summarization embedded directly in the adjuster workflow and the Claims Intelligence portlet, which brings third-party models for fraud detection, claim complexity, and predictive inspection routing directly into the claim screen.

That intelligence starts at intake. Celent highlights Duck Creek’s loss intake API, multi-channel intake, LexisNexis integration for police reports, early duplicate detection through ISO claim search, and Key Facts that can surface claim complexity earlier in the process.

For us, the common thread is intelligence moving closer to the work. Rather than asking claims professionals to bridge data, models, systems, and decisions themselves, modern claims technology can bring more of that context together at the point of action.

For adjusters, that can mean less time assembling information and more time understanding what it means for the claim. For claims organizations, it creates an opportunity to apply intelligence more consistently while keeping people at the center of decisions that require judgment.

Our view is that advanced claims technology isn’t defined by how much AI it contains. It’s defined by how effectively it helps people understand, decide, and act.

Why Does Breadth of Functionality Matter in Claims?

Celent awarded Duck Creek an XCelent Award for Breadth of Functionality, recognizing the range of capabilities available within Duck Creek Claims.

For insurers, breadth matters because claims don’t all follow the same path. A straightforward claim may be appropriate for significant automation, while a complex loss can require investigation, specialist expertise, multiple parties, recoveries, or extended handling. Technology needs to support both, and everything in between.

Celent’s assessment highlights that breadth across the claim’s lifecycle, from multi-channel intake and early duplicate detection to straight-through processing, liability, subrogation, and payments.

For us, the value of that breadth is not simply having more functionality. It’s being able to put the right process around each claim. Lower-complexity claims can move quickly through automation, while more complex claims can be surfaced earlier and directed to the people, information, and expertise they require.

That flexibility matters beyond operational efficiency. Claims are where insurers deliver on the promise they made to the policyholder, and every unnecessary handoff, delay, or disconnected process can affect that experience.

Our view is that breadth isn’t just about having more features. It’s about giving claim’s organizations more ways to match the right process, intelligence, and expertise to each claim.

What Role Should AI Play in Modern Claims?

As AI takes on more claims work, insurers need to think beyond what the technology can do to how intelligence operates within the claims process.

Celent’s assessment points to practical examples already embedded within Duck Creek Claims, including AI-powered summarization and the Claims Intelligence portlet. These capabilities bring intelligence into the work while keeping claims professionals at the center of decision-making.

As AI expands from informing decisions to taking on more work, responsible AI in claims becomes even more important. Insurers need trusted context behind the intelligence, clear boundaries around what AI can do, visibility into how decisions are made, and human judgment where it matters.

That’s where the claims story connects to Duck Creek’s broader Intelligent Core strategy. Trusted insurance data and context provide the foundation; governed AI adds intelligence; people provide expertise and judgment; and core workflows provide the path from decision to action.

Agentic First Notice of Loss is one example of that model in action: applying Agentic AI at the beginning of the claims lifecycle to help capture, validate, enrich, triage, and route claims within governed workflows.

That’s governed execution: intelligence moving from insight to action without leaving trusted context, controls, or human judgment behind.

From Modern Claims to Intelligent Claims Operations

Celent’s 2026 recognition of Duck Creek Claims for Advanced Technology and Breadth of Functionality, along with its Luminary rating in the Technical Capabilities Matrix, reflects both the sophistication and depth required of a modern claims platform.

For us, the bigger story is what happens when those capabilities work together.

Claims modernization is moving beyond digitizing processes and automating individual tasks. The opportunity now is to connect intelligence, automation, human expertise, and execution across the claim’s operation.

What distinguishes Duck Creek is how those capabilities come together. Not as separate layers, but as part of a connected claims operation.

That’s the role of Claims within the Intelligent Core of Insurance: connecting trusted data and context, governed AI, people, workflows, and core execution so intelligence can become action across the claim’s lifecycle.

The next era of claims won’t be defined by more technology. It will be defined by more intelligent claims operations and better outcomes because of them.