Adaptik Corporation

Creating a ‘first choice’ policy administration system

Written by Kevin Conway on May 2nd, 2012

In this era of data analytics, it’s tempting to try to capitalize on the implementation of a new policy administration system by adding all of the data elements you might ever want to analyze.

But there’s a problem with this approach: The data has to come from somewhere, and too often that burden gets put on the system users. This can create a cumbersome system that agents –the ones often tasked with initial data entry – are reluctant to use. That’s not a very good position to be in; for day-to-day business, it’s preferable to be the first choice, rather than the last one.

A key solution to this conflict is the use of third party data sources like MVRs, NCCI loss information, CLUE, etc in real time or near real time. This is facilitated by the use of a platform with an open architecture, like PolicyWriter, making it easy to integrate with external or internal web services. In these systems, the data tends to be more accurate, and the burden of researching and entering information is taken off the user. The user has a better experience and the carrier has better data to use with the current activity as well as all future activities with that customer and risk.

You need a policy administration system end-users want to actually use. A configurable solution like PolicyWriter makes it easy to prototype many different approaches to get there.

Agents typically work inside the confines of their agency management systems, building up data needed to manage their book of business. Much of this information is left behind when the user needs to enter it manually. However, It is also possible to leverage this data by utilizing uploading capabilities to create new quotes. This is another area where using a policy administration system like PolicyWriter is beneficial because it is designed to facilitate the creation of policies through the rapid upload of data from other systems. This data can then be scrubbed using the carrier rules, leveraging default values in places where the information is missing or falls outside the product definition. All the information is presented back to the user in an easy to view quote summary noting where the data remedies have been done. Everyone is happy: agents get to work from their agency management systems and carriers benefit from more complete data sets

Finally, it is OK to still capture additional information about a risk that might not be available in the data services or the agency management systems but it is especially important to analyze the flow of the system from the end-user’s perspective. You know what you’re looking to get out of it, but what are they looking to get out of it?

  • Are the questions being asked at the appropriate time when the user will have the information?
  • How will the user interact with the system to provide missing information? Summarized on one page or spread out across all pages?
  • What is the ratio of quoted policies to written policies?
  • Do you need different views for quotes and policies for your internal and external users?
  • Should you have a simple flow that first takes the user to an indication of premium and then presents additional questions to fully underwrite and issue the policy?

Remember: You need a policy administration system end-users want to actually use. A configurable solution like PolicyWriter makes it easy to prototype many different approaches to get there.