FARMINGTON, CT--(Marketwire - Aug 15, 2012) - The Innovation Group plc (Innovation Group) today announced the company has been listed as a sample vendor in Gartner's "Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance, 2012" published by Kimberly Harris-Ferrante on July 27, 2012.
The "2012 Hype Cycle for P&C" Insurance serves as a guide to assist companies in evaluating emerging trends and technologies and their role within the property and casualty (P&C) insurance sector. This Hype Cycle should be used by chief information officers (CIOs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), and business executives within P&C insurance organizations (including heads of distribution, claims, customer service and underwriting) to determine the maturity and risks associated with emerging and developing technologies, as well as their applicability to the P&C insurance industry.
The report indicates the P&C insurance industry continues to face increased pressures to evolve, partially due to demands created by highly-competitive markets with tough competition. Industry pressures such as consumerization, shifting consumer behavior (including social networking), the growing use of electronic channels (including mobile devices) among distributors and customers, major catastrophic events, and regulatory changes, are the main concerns among insurance chief executive officers (CEOs) and CIOs. P&C insurers in all lines of business (LOBs) -- personal, commercial and specialty -- are having to continuously identify new operating models, business processes and technologies to reduce operational costs, grow profits, retain customers, increase customer base, and ensure customer retention through improved claims and customer service interactions.
To meet these goals, it is imperative that P&C insurers take a more aggressive business and IT transformation approach that includes process changes and new technology adoption. Replacing and modernizing aging legacy systems, building new customer touchpoints -- especially direct channels -- improving profitably through improved underwriting, and claims transformation are all major requirements for staying competitive in this market. For 2012, there are four major business strategies guiding strategy development and technology expenditures -- operational efficiency, customer centricity, claims transformation and underwriting profitability -- that are essential for survival.
Some of the areas this year's Hype Cycle focus on, and in which Innovation Group was listed, include:
Policy Management Modules are stand-alone solutions designed to manage the entire life cycle of an insurance policy, including: quoting/rating; binding; issuance; endorsements; renewal; cancellations; reinstatements; product configuration; workflow management; and generation of statistical reporting.
Claims Management Modules combine claims administration and business process management to support the end-to-end claims process for property and casualty (P&C) insurers including: first notice of loss (FNOL); claims setup; reserves; assignment; investigation; litigation; settlement; and administration and reporting.
P&C Insurance BPO is the outsourcing of various industry-specific business processes, such as claims handling or policy servicing, to a third-party specialty firm that supplies the staff to support that process and, in many cases, the systems required for processing.
Claims Analytics is the use of business intelligence (BI), reporting solutions, dashboards, data mining and predictive modeling technologies to manage and analyze claims data, which can result in improved performance. Overall, three processes are supported in claims analytics tools -- claims analysis, reporting and predictive modeling.
Aerial and Digital Imagery is the use of digital images, including those in 3D, by P&C insurers to view properties, as well as the software that analyzes the images to estimate size, proximity to risks, and location for physical locations or properties.
"We are very pleased to be noted in this year's P&C Insurance Hype Cycle report," said Andy Roberts, Group CEO, Innovation Group. "We believe our broad representation recognizes our commitment to the insurance industry to provide an insurance-specific software and services platform that enables insurers to change and respond, both now and into the future. This further highlights how our powerful software, broad services and comprehensive networks give insurers a platform for innovation across the insurance value chain."
Uniquely, Innovation Insurer, Innovation Group's best-of-breed suite for P&C insurance, can be delivered via on-premise, ASP, BPO, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Cloud, and integrated with Innovation Group's extensive repair network for auto and property, part of their BPO services, providing a powerful solution in the drive for business transformation. Innovation Group's software and BPO services have received numerous awards including Celent XCelent recognition for Insurer Policy; RAVE awards for Insurer Claims and Innovation Auto; Novarica ACE Rankings for Insurer Claims and Innovation Auto; VIP awards for Insurer Claims, Insurer Analytics and Insurer Conversion; and Celent Model Insurer for Insurer Policy, Insurer Claims and Insurer Analytics.
About the Hype Cycle:
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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Innovation Group
Jennifer Overhulse
St. Nick Media Services
+1 859-803-6597
jen@stnickmedia.com