Agility is necessary for new product launches and reducing operational costs, but insurers are hamstrung by a heap of legacy systems that stop them from keeping up with their own ambitions, writes Bart Patrick, managing director of Duck Creek Technologies Europe.
Picture all the hardware, software, information technology, and related systems in use at a typical insurer as a physical structure. What would it look like?
There would be a smartly-painted frontage, and maybe a loft extension for storage and a shiny conservatory for guests. But there would also be rotten beams, creaky floorboards, leaky pipes, and perhaps a few degrees of subsidence.
The picture is less an elegant country pile and more an unruly heap. Unfortunately, too many general insurers have built their technology houses in such a way – so that the stack built up over time has left carriers’ technology unwieldy rather than agile.
The tendency is not to replace things but to add new levels to the heap. Insurers have been sticking on pieces of technology that masquerade as modern but are inflexible. Further down the heap some still rely on legacy green-screen systems that simply cannot keep up.
The core business of underwriting is being undermined by inefficiency. Enough is enough.
It’s time to stop adding to this tech heap.
