- By Andy Flower
- Published 11/8/2012
Keeping up with the continuous changes in the insurance sector is difficult for an insurance company without the right strategies. Incorporating the right software solutions in their business processes can be of considerable help in keeping up with these changes.
It is possible to overcome the challenges presented by the volatile economic situation and stiff competition with the use of the appropriate underwriting software. How do software solutions help in addressing the challenges that an insurance company faces in today’s times? Here is a brief overview of this matter.
Challenge 1: Manual handling of paper-based processes cause errors, delays and extra and repetitive work. The necessity to re-key all essential details manually multiple times is the reason for these problems.
Automating the underwriting process, with minimal or no human intervention, is capable of overcoming this problem. This has a number of advantages for your company; it enhances the speed and accuracy of the application processing, minimises errors and delays, and reduces costs and underwriting leakage.
Challenge 2: Reduced visibility in the underwriting process makes it difficult to monitor the performance of agents. This may lead to the loss of a skilled workforce as well as the loss of business for an insurance company.
Automating the underwriting process ensures complete visibility, from the submission of the application to the issuance of a policy. Real-time updates about application processing and agent performance provide scope for improvement. It is also possible to make appropriate decisions in complex cases. The agents are satisfied with the ease of operations.
Challenge 3: Compliance with ever-changing legislations may need to be updated manually. If this is not possible, and the IT department is yet to update the system, your company may have to face compliance issues.
Automating the underwriting process makes it possible to make changes to the existing system to meet new rules and regulations. It is also possible to change this as per the changing business requirements. This will help minimise the loss of business, mitigate risks of legal hassles and enhance the speed of time to market.
Challenge 4: The lack of coordination and integration between the internal and external systems of an insurance company is a cause of delays and errors. This is increased due to the necessity to re-enter data to the different systems.
Automating the underwriting process enables straight through processing in insurance. This provides an opportunity to integrate different systems and create a single point of access to the entire database. An appropriate system also ensures that it is not difficult to scale the system according to the change in business needs.
Challenge 5: The existing business processes often fail to keep up with the new requirements of introducing new products to the market. The self-service capabilities are also hampered with the existing systems.
Automating the underwriting process makes it possible to reduce application processing times. This enhances the speed of time to market and helps a business to invest their resources in more productive tasks, such as new product planning. It also gives agents and customers self-service portals that ease the insurance application process.
Author Bio
Andy Flower is a professional underwriter. He provides tips and suggestions for insurance businesses regarding the automating of life insurance risk assessment. If you are looking for information regarding straight through processing or STP in insurance, he suggests you to visit http://automation.munichre.com/ for further details. 
Hello, myself Andy Flower. I am an Author and doing the same for a long time. To know more about me…..please visit my website!!!!
