Consultant says more and more providers are coming round to the idea of cloud systems
A common criticism of the insurance industry goes that it is a staid business adverse to change. The partnership agreement signed last week between business outsourcing provider Symcor and software developer for the insurance sector Majecso suggests this reputation may be outdated.
There is a digital revolution underway with insurance and firms like Symcor and Majecso aim to position themselves at the forefront of this realignment.
The tie-in between the two firms will add Majesco's software to Symcor's cloud and outsourcing capabilities, thus providing an Insurance as a Service (IaaS) solution to clients.
Symcor has identified Canada’s huge insurance market as a key area for growth, and the timing couldn’t be better according senior management consultant with the company, Geoffrey Bonn.
“Insurance is facing long-term structural issues that we as vendors have observed,” he says. “In life and health in particular, the long-term depressed interest rate market has caused a lot of pressure on how they run their businesses.”
In such an environment, providers need to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and having the most advanced technology available is certainly a way to do that.
“We are seeing a shift in how they need to interact with agents, brokers and clients through the digital spectrum,” says Bonn. “There is a changing perspective on how customers want to interact with their insurers.”
Majesco has already enjoyed success with a similar cloud-based system in the US, so this partnership means Symcor now has the rights to deploy the hosted service across the Canadian market.
According to Bonn, financial institutions throughout North America are slowly but surely coming around to the idea of host solutions. For the industry’s heavy-hitters, however, it remains a tougher sell.
“The firms that can afford massive investments in their internal infrastructure, they will generally always prefer to have control of their systems,” says Bonn. “For the mind-tier insurers, those under $1 billion in written premiums, I think they will need to look at hosted solutions to make sure they can stay on pace with the digital evolution going on in their business.”
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Could robos come to life insurance sector?
There is a digital revolution underway with insurance and firms like Symcor and Majecso aim to position themselves at the forefront of this realignment.
The tie-in between the two firms will add Majesco's software to Symcor's cloud and outsourcing capabilities, thus providing an Insurance as a Service (IaaS) solution to clients.
Symcor has identified Canada’s huge insurance market as a key area for growth, and the timing couldn’t be better according senior management consultant with the company, Geoffrey Bonn.
“Insurance is facing long-term structural issues that we as vendors have observed,” he says. “In life and health in particular, the long-term depressed interest rate market has caused a lot of pressure on how they run their businesses.”
In such an environment, providers need to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and having the most advanced technology available is certainly a way to do that.
“We are seeing a shift in how they need to interact with agents, brokers and clients through the digital spectrum,” says Bonn. “There is a changing perspective on how customers want to interact with their insurers.”
Majesco has already enjoyed success with a similar cloud-based system in the US, so this partnership means Symcor now has the rights to deploy the hosted service across the Canadian market.
According to Bonn, financial institutions throughout North America are slowly but surely coming around to the idea of host solutions. For the industry’s heavy-hitters, however, it remains a tougher sell.
“The firms that can afford massive investments in their internal infrastructure, they will generally always prefer to have control of their systems,” says Bonn. “For the mind-tier insurers, those under $1 billion in written premiums, I think they will need to look at hosted solutions to make sure they can stay on pace with the digital evolution going on in their business.”
Related stories:
Doing business in the digital age
Could robos come to life insurance sector?
