Scott Peart
President
DSPA Software Inc.

It’s great to have you with us again, Scott. What were last year’s challenges?

The growing acceptance and adoption of data standards is the beginning, not the end, of the road to creating efficient, flexible, and maintainable processing environments. Structured programming techniques in the 80s were based on the principles of functional specialization and the re-use of common components. Today SOA has refined and expanded those ideas and those principles are being applied on a grander scale to structure system environments. However, it is especially difficult to replace or augment some legacy components, such as policy administration systems that perform multiple functions such as new business, commissions, and claims as companies must consider the wide ranging impacts.

Current key steps?

Insurers should continue to adopt data standards and work to reduce their dependence on aging administration systems by moving non-core functions such as commission and claim processing to specialized systems that feature newer, more agile, technology. This will give companies the flexibility they require to replace or augment these legacy systems in order to take full advantage of the new SOA strategies.

A good data integration strategy?

Successful companies will resist the urge to move to the ‘latest thing’ and will first address the data and functional redundancy that exists in their core infrastructure. This will reduce the complexity of their future projects and position them for sustainable success. The result will be a customer-centric environment that can easily link information with the necessary tools to support customers, distributors, and internal clients including operations, financial reporting, business development, and strategic planning.

What is the one thing insurers should take away from this forum?

I think insurers already realize that they achieve a competitive business advantage through the efficient use of technology. This forum will show them that many new and exciting products with measurable payback are becoming available.

Doug Roller
Chief Executive Officer
Duck Creek Technologies

Welcome, Doug. What in your view were some of the stumbling blocks for 2006?

Carriers are discovering that ‘best of breed’ can be difficult to implement. Integrating a policy administration system with a billing system, for instance, requires careful analysis of the way both systems behave when processing out-of-sequence endorsements and other complex transactions. Cutting corners during the requirements and specification phases of implementation can be extremely costly during build-out.

Key steps this year?

Short-term (2007) continued vigilance at the FRONT of the implementation process will be key. Continued improvement of the support of ACORD transaction standards can also help. In the long-term, however, the ‘devil is in the details,’ and the standards themselves may need to be more specific with regard to the actual posting and transactional processes that take place within disparate systems.

What does a good data integration strategy look like?

Clean, simple, well-defined interfaces are core to any integration strategy. When the process inside the ‘black box’ can be clearly described and easily invoked, both carriers and vendors have a much better chance of success.

What is the one thing insurers should take away from this forum?

Insurers should spend more time defining where they want to end up before starting the journey.