Week 1 Assignment - POPULAR BUSINESS JOURNALS to: | | from: | | subject: | SUCCESSFUL BI IMplEMENTATIONS – INSURANCE INDUSTRY | date: | January 11, 2015 | | | | |
Over the past decade due to increased competition, product commoditization and price pressure, insurance companies are seeking to create differentiated value propositions in their products, while reducing losses and improving efficiencies. Business people in functions such as sales, marketing, finance, underwriting, and claims all drive the bottom line. Profitability depends on ensuring everyone in the insurance company makes optimal decisions. Three such leading insurers that applied Business Intelligence solutions successfully to acquire the aforementioned are below.
EMC Insurance Companies struggled with pinpointing the right amount of money to hold in reserve against potential case payouts; holding back either too much or too little could be disadvantageous to the firm’s bottom line. The company selected PolyVista, advanced data analytics software built on Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, to uncover anomalies, correlations, relationships, and patterns hidden within the firm’s warehouse of claim data. After deploying the solution, EMC was able to improve financial reserve management, identify claims requiring special attention, improve data quality, support executive decision making with improved analysis, and better manage expenses.
GEICO uses MicroStrategy to analyze over 20 terabytes of customer and sales data to monitor and improve GEICO’s corporate performance and enhance insight into customer behavioral patterns. With MicroStrategy’s dashboards and one-click analysis, GEICO personnel can seamlessly gain greater insight into sales activity to enhance customer relationships and generate sales growth.
Guy Carpenter uses MicroStrategy’s business intelligence software, along with mapping technology, to provide its insurance company clients with a highly visual and intuitive display of natural or man-made event data. The i-aXs platform offers a suite of easy-to-use Web-enabled tools that help insurers view and better understand complex risk exposure information.
Profitability Optimization solutions for Insurance deliver best-in-class accuracy and flexibility, enabling users at all levels to monitor and visualize key profitability metrics. Performance by channel, product, geography, or customer demographics are examples of interactive possibilities. In addition to summarized data, authorized users can drill into detailed revenue / cost structures to generate new insights. Mobile dashboards allow users to stay in touch with key profitability metrics while on-the-go. Finance and business users can easily collaborate and share a secure view of operational profitability information, simplifying complex what-if analyses.
These BI solutions meet the industry-specific needs of other environments such as banks, insurance companies, and capital markets firms worldwide, and help financial services customers realize their full potential.
Company Background Information & BI Approach:
1. EMC Insurance Companies ranks among the top 50 insurance organizations in the United States and is one of the largest property and casualty companies in Iowa, based on net written premium. It employs more than 2,100 people and sells its products through independent insurance agencies in 40 states.
BI Approach: EMC had a great deal of insurance claim data but limited ability to analyze the information. Unexpected fluctuations of financial reserves prompted EMC to search for a data management tool. EMC chose PolyVista business intelligence software, built on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, for the company’s data analysis needs.
2. GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company) is the fourth-largest private passenger auto insurer in the United States. It provides auto insurance coverage for more than 8 million policyholders and insures more than 13 million vehicles. As a member of the Berkshire Hathaway group of companies, GEICO is rated A++ for financial stability by A.M. Best Company and ranks at the top of several national customer satisfaction surveys
BI Approach: GEICO’s MicroStrategy applications have more than 1,500 users who execute over 2,000 analytical reports daily. With MicroStrategy’s dashboards and one-click analysis, GEICO personnel can gain greater insight into sales activity to enhance customer relationships and generate sales growth.
3. Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC is the world’s leading risk and reinsurance specialist and member of the Marsh & McLennan Companies. Guy Carpenter helps its clients achieve profitable growth with a powerful combination of specialized reinsurance broking expertise, strategic advisory services, and industry- leading analytics.
BI Approach: Guy Carpenter developed a system to help clients streamline data management, bypass data analysis bottlenecks and customize their own analytical reports. The result is i-aXs, a risk management platform that allows users to produce customizable reports, complete with mapping, in seconds. i-aXs uses Oracle Spatial to store, organize and manage spatial data, as well as to provide sophisticated analytics. i-aXs' Gradient Analysis tool highlights the marginal impact of losses to a portfolio at a specific risk level and by geographic area.
Works Cited
About EMC. (n.d.). Retrieved from EMC Insurance: http://www.emcins.com/AboutEMC/index.aspx
Business Intelligence Solutions for Insurance. (n.d.). Retrieved from MicroStrategy: http://www2.microstrategy.com/download/files/solutions/byindustry/MSTR_Insurance_Mobile_July2011.pdf
Guy Carpenter’s i-aXs Puts Data on the Map for Insurers. (n.d.). Retrieved from DirectionsMag: http://www.directionsmag.com/articles/guy-carpenters-i-axs-puts-data-on-the-map-for-insurers/122853
Managing Risk. (n.d.). Retrieved from Guy Carpenter: http://www.guycarp.com/content/guycarp/en/home.html
Microstrategy Solutions for Insurance. (n.d.). Retrieved from MicroStrategy: http://www2.microstrategy.com/download/files/solutions/ByIndustry/MicroStrategyIndustrySolutionsInsurance.pdf 