We met a lot of great people at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America’s Information Technology conference in Tucson, AZ. Change was the theme that resounded throughout the conference. Everyone knows competitive pressures are driving insurers to leverage technology to lower costs and get closer to their customers (agents or insureds) while operating in a flat budget environment.

The PCI planning committee did a nice job of taking things beyond the obvious, providing sessions describing how customer and labor demographic trends will play key roles in driving the technology choices made by insurers and agents. Real time access was a recurring theme. Producers and insureds want on-demand access to policy, claims and billing info through multiple channels.

Most of the insurers delivering this level of information availability are utilizing a web services supporting a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This methodology allows the use of existing infrastructure or best of breed components to integrate business processes and is a quick way of describing what we do when we perform legacy modernization services. It allows multiple individual systems to share data reducing iterant human intervention in the application, underwriting, policy administration, billing and claims processes. It also creates a framework that allows component replacement with minimum business disruption.

Most of the presentations confirmed what we preach to our clients during every engagement. Complete requirements documentation, effective project management and sound governance are the keys to every successful IT initiative or implementation. Common pitfalls in these endeavors include poorly documented requirements, unrealistic timelines and lack of project manager experience.

The golf club and spa gift certificate giveaways helped lure in the audience, but we put on a well attended presentation, themed around “Hurdles to Your Success” which described how we have helped our industry clients overcome data, legacy modernization, integration and automation challenges often without the need for additional capital investments. Blue Slate has already started visiting some of the people we met to explore ways we can help them overcome their challenges. If you’re interested in seeing the presentation, email me at michael.farley@blueslate.net and I’ll be happy to send it along.