Combating Today's Insurance Market Challenges with ECM (Strategic Focus)

Insurers are facing the most difficult economic environment in more than 70 years, all while also having to manage ever-more demanding consumers and burdensome regulations that will not abate. To manage in this difficult environment, insurers need to become more efficient and improve their customer propositions. ECM is an effective way to achieve these goals.

Report Highlights
One way to gain efficiencies is to ensure that all forms and documents are stored in a unified location that can be accessed by a number of people from numerous locations. Additionally, workflows need to be automated; no longer can a processing agent physically deliver a file to the next person or department.

Datamonitor predicts that the global spend on ECM by both life and non-life insurers will slow slightly in 2009. The pace of spending will pick up in 2010 and return to pre-crisis rates in 2012.

SaaS solutions will make headway in the ECM market. A number of insurance-specific ECM vendors have already developed a SaaS offering, while others are in the process. Meanwhile, pure-play SaaS providers are looking to establish vertical offerings.
[Studien Infos ausblenden]

Overview 1
Catalyst 1
Summary 1
Key Messages 2
Difficult market conditions elevate the importance of operational efficiency 2
Insurers are handling greater amounts of content in a highly regulated environment 2
Insurance-related ECM spend is projected to exceed $400m by 2012 2
Aligning technologies, people and processes can be a large challenge 2
Be prepared for a future with alternative delivery methods 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
Table of figures 3
Table of tables 3
Market Opportunity 4
Difficult market conditions elevate the importance of the expense ratio 4
Process improvement and overhead reductions help to address the expense ratio 6
Improve business process in order to enhance through-put time and enable greater volumes with less staff 6
Reduce paper in order to conserve space 6
Improve scalability in order to better meet demand and integrate acquisitions 7
Enable better-and cheaper-customer service through more self-service and first-call resolution 7
Insurers face an ever-growing information tsunami 8
A burdensome regulatory environment requires sound content management and security 9
A brief survey of US regulations 10
State regulations 10
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) 10
Anti-money laundering: the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act 10
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) 11
Security 11
Current market forces are pushing and pulling ECM adoption 11
Impact On The Insurer 13
ECM can deliver savings and enable strategies that have a material effect on the company 13
Improved productivity and reduced space requirements leads to significant savings and a boost in value 13
Innovation through collaboration and the security of business continuation are invaluable intangibles 14
Innovation through collaboration 14
Business continuity means content, too 15
Aligning technologies, people and processes can be a large challenge 15
True core systems integration provides the best results but can be difficult to achieve 15
The challenges of creating a unified ECM solution 16
The challenges of aligning people and processes with an ECM solution 16
ECM can enable greater self-service, which saves money but can also threaten agents 18
Competitive Landscape 20
The recent consolidation created more complete offerings-a benefit and a challenge for insurers 20
A number of vendors are primarily focused on the SME insurance market 21
Hyland Software, Inc 21
ImageRight 22
Laserfiche 22
Perceptive Software 22
Vignette 23
Two players outside of the insurance vertical are making waves 23
Go to Market 25
Target large and small insurers but adjust message 25
For overseas expansion, partner locally to avoid home country bias 26
Be prepared for a future with alternative delivery methods 27
Recommendations 29
Understand each insurer's specific pain points 29
Sell SaaS differently by striving to include business decision-makers 29
APPENDIX 30
Methodology 30
Further reading 30
Ask the analyst 30
Datamonitor consulting 30
Disclaimer 30
[Inhaltsverzeichnis ausblenden]

Table 1: Non-life insurance third quarter performance 5
Table 2: Savings and value created by an ECM solution ($) 14
Figure 1: The sources of content and channels challenging insurers 8
Figure 2: Regulatory compliance is a key focus for insurers 9
Figure 3: Projected market value of insurance-related ECM spend, 2006-12 12
Figure 4: Current SOA adoption, broken down by sector 16
Figure 5: Technology, people and process challenges of ECM 18
Figure 6: Policy holder self-service as business driver 19
Figure 7: ECM investment plans by insurers, broken down by region and size 26
Figure 8: ECM investment plans by insurers, broken down by region and sector 27
Figure 9: SaaS sentiments among insurers, broken down by size 28
[Tabellenverzeichnis ausblenden]