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NA Financial is probably a name you’ve heard recently. It’s the sixth-largest commercial insurance company in the USA and is also an established cyber insurance provider. It made the news on the 21st of March, 2021 when an official statement claimed that they had been a victim of a “sophisticated cybersecurity attack”. Ransomware called  Phoenix CryptoLocker  affected fifteen thousand devices, disrupted their network, and impacted corporate mail and other systems. The amount of classified information that the attackers got their hands on is still unknown, but such a data breach in insurance can often start small and go undetected for long.   Why are cybercriminals targeting insurers? Insurance companies have often found themselves in the crosshairs of cyberattacks, especially after banks implemented highly secure networks that make them harder to breach. As with any industry, reaping the benefits of big data, AI, and the internet of things (IoT), comes the risk of cy...

  Picture this. You finally decide on an insurance software and are excited to transform your company’s processes with it. You’ve got your budget approved and set a clear project timeline. The twin benefits of digitization and automation are right around the corner! But, before you realize it, scope creep has set all those careful plans to naught. Now your ‘go-live’ date is months beyond the original project management timeline.  While this may sound like a worst case scenario, the harsh reality is that insurance implementation can often take upwards of 18 months and cost more money than anticipated. However, this does not have to be the case. Quick implementation of insurance software boils down to one thing: efficient planning.  Why Project Timelines aren’t met  This scenario is more common than you would expect Also Read:  The Importance of System Architecture to Shorten Customization Time   Reasons for project failure costing you millions Not defining y...

  The era of robotic process automation (RPA) coupled with deep learning is here and boy, is it creating waves across industries! From back-office functions to customer solutions, it has effectively turned processes around on their heads. Leading banks, hedge funds and asset managers have successfully leveraged RPA tools not only to streamline standard processes but also to save money significantly.  In insurance, especially for auto, property and casualty sectors, RPA can be used to automate a wide range of repetitive functions like document screening, claims processing and even internal underwriting processes. In fact, robotic process automation can be invaluable when it comes to functions that are prone to human mistakes, reducing duplication and error rates.  Juniper Research  on automation in the insurance industry says that almost half of all insurers will invest in RPA by 2024. Another study from  McKinsey  on digital disruption in the insurance indu...

  It is not difficult to find a correlation between software architecture agility and operational benefits.  In a competitive landscape where disruptive technology is constantly pushing the barriers, time-to-market can be the big differentiator.  Insurers who lack a robust tech stack with the right software architecture, integration layer architecture and platform integrations can find themselves struggling to offer the best digital capabilities.  For instance, a BCG report has found that 35% of all insurance industry applications are not “cloud ready”, making them incompatible with mobile devices - modern consumer’s device of choice.  Software architecture is the foundation that builds the system Many insurers have legacy architecture that is older than the engineers working on them. Making even small changes to these monolithic core systems, require months of regression testing.   Moving to a modern architecture requires a fundamentally different app...

  The purchase price is not the only deciding factor when your organization is evaluating new tech solutions. Ever since 1987 when Gartner came out with their revolutionary TCO analysis, CIOs in the United States of America, have been looking at the bigger picture to decide on new investments. In IT financial management terms, the Total Cost of Ownership does not stop with the purchase price of the asset but should also include the cost of operation.  Industry data shows that purchase price is often just about 10 percent of the actual cost of implementation. There are hidden costs, part of your operational risk management, that need to be considered. This means the amount spent on tech integration, maintenance and support, training staff, microservices integration from multiple vendors, etc. will need to reflect in the costing too.  Understanding TCO    A TCO analysis is often an eye-opener. It may reveal that what you had considered a great bargain might just e...