Platforms on Purpose: Majesco’s Push for Launch-Ready Insurance Systems

Every great idea must have an effective implementation framework. This is the core value proposition of insurance technology.

Even the best ideas need a methodology to move from drafting table to “open for business.” This goes for nearly any product or service you provide. The tools are just as important as the designers. Tools are design-enablers.

Preparations for Platform Use in Insurance

The InsurTech movement arose in late 2015, and in 2016 the industry paused its core systems selections to try to get a handle on what the implications were for their business. Insurance industry leaders considered whether they would need a different set of solutions than they had, or were planning to implement. Would they need to consider retooling their business processes and models to adapt to customer trends and disruptive competition? What and how much change would be enough to keep customers happy?

At this time, Majesco had already been reading the signs and understood what insurers were going to need. Our consumer and SMB primary research showed the early signs of new customer expectations.  And our Strategic Priorities research revealed that most insurers were not prepared. These insights, coupled with our experience in customers moving to the cloud, reinforced Majesco’s strategic investment in the re-architecting and development of our core insurance systems and our digital platform. These investments would allow insurers to adapt to the market changes with next-gen technology for their current business, while also helping them to cultivate new products and business models. These new systems would be “platform-based,” meaning that they would take advantage of platform technologies like cloud, APIs, microservices and AI to allow for increased data exchange, plug and play digital tech capabilities and SaaS-based operations, among other things.

Majesco recognized that insurers were going to increasingly need to meet customers based on what they needed and where they were — a shifting point of purchase that would require a digital edge. This meant that insurers would need to develop new products to meet new lifestyles, behaviors and new risks while taking advantage of new opportunities to gather and analyze data – in real time.

One of the largest hurdles for insurers, Majesco realized, would still be product development time. Every retail trend and predictive indicator seemed to point to “just-in-time” delivery as a qualification for new insurance models. This would require a system that could flex on the outside, and adapt to new channels, partners, markets and capabilities. It would also require a system that could flex on the inside by being easily upgraded and updated automatically with increased frequency.

So, Majesco took a head start to get ahead of the trends in order to be ready for the new insurance landscape — whatever that landscape was going to look like. Majesco pushed all of its system development plans forward with the purpose of creating launch-ready platforms which were introduced in the fall of 2017: Version 10 of the Majesco core systems for P&C and L&A and Group as well as Majesco Digital1^st® Insurance. These platforms have been further enhanced with the recent V11 release of P&C Core Suite and L&A and Group Core Suite, as well as the continued enhancements to Digital1^st and an expanding ecosystem. The strategic investments in these platform solutions enable our customers’ transformation and shift to the future of insurance, while also bringing new and innovative capabilities to improve speed to value, customer experience, ecosystem connectivity and cloud delivery.

We’ll discuss the results of this forward-thinking development in just a moment.

InsurTech, while initially feared, has become the catalyst for needed change. Dr. Andrew Johnston, Global Head of InsurTech at Willis Re, captured this sentiment perfectly when he said that,  “InsurTech’s greatest achievement to date has been to act like a defibrillator on the heart of the insurance industry. People across the sector now talk more positively about the use of technology. Some see it as the potential saviour of a broken system.”[i]  And platforms are the next-gen technology for insurance.

In our last few blogs, we’ve been considering platforms in action, utilizing our latest thought-leadership report, Insurance Platforms – A Burning Platform for Market Leadership in the Digital Era of Insurance, as a conversational starting point. If you’ve missed these installments, you may wish to begin with What is a Platform? Expert Opinions and Insurer Actions.

Platforms Pave the Way to Success

InsurTech innovations have also sparked and heightened the need for definitive leadership. Without being rash, insurance leaders need to make sure they are moving the organization rapidly forward in order to capitalize on the market opportunities that are opening up. Today’s and tomorrow’s opportunities favor the use of platforms to accomplish this.

The ability to channel core insurance systems, digital experience platforms and an ecosystem of other digital capabilities requires the adoption of a modern architecture that supports easy, rapid integration through microservices or APIs running in the cloud to drive speed to implementation, speed to market and speed to value, at scale. Insurance leaders will find that nearly any future growth initiative they can think of (their next great ideas) will find success along roads constructed by platforms.

Platforms Brought to Life — Innovation Cases

Platform approaches are now proving their success for insurers. Majesco now has the privilege of working with emerging leaders in the future of insurance. They have brought their best ideas from the drafting table to life.  These profiles are in the full report and on our website.

Urban Advantage – MGA Start-up

In 2018, Urban Advantage launched as an MGA with the mission to bring comprehensive and competitive personal lines insurance products to the urban communities of California. Urban communities have been steadily increasing their asset ownership and are predominately minority. By 2020, 60% of California will identify as Hispanic, African-American or Asian. Urban Advantage wanted to provide personal lines fire and auto products to this growing market through a network of selected independent agents.

In support of their new business model, they wanted to invest in a technology platform that would scale with the business while providing point-of-sale processing with real-time underwriting, paperless delivery, electronic payments, and digital engagement portals for customers and agents. They wanted to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) leveraging as many out-of-the box capabilities and as much content as possible, focusing on customizing their product to differentiate in the market.

To support their strategy and rapid launch, they implemented Majesco Policy for P&C and Majesco Billing for P&C on the Majesco CloudInsurer® platform in 95 days for the first product, dwelling fire. This was followed by the rapid rollout of additional products.

“From the very beginning we were impressed with the depth of business and technical capabilities of the Majesco platforms as well as their understanding of the unique challenges for greenfields like ourselves to support a business launch,” commented Danna Gomez, COO of Urban Advantage. “The speed and quality of the implementation has surpassed our expectations, helping to rapidly launch our business and drive speed to value.”[ii]

Check out their story via this webinar, press release or the 2018 ITC Panel.

Ategrity Specialty Insurance – Insurance Company Start-up

Ategrity Specialty Insurance is an Excess & Surplus lines insurance company based in Scottsdale, Arizona with plans to operate in all 50 states. Their vision is to create a future-proof, digital business platform powered by advanced analytics, deep learning, intuitive design, and state of the art technologies. Through a seamless, fast and simple experience throughout the insurance-buying and servicing value chain, Ategrity is actively engaging with the marketplace through innovation and transformational technologies.

They utilize an ecosystem of key partners; an integrated cloud core suite platform; a microservices-based architecture; a robust data and integration platform; and they leverage data as an advantage, enabling innovation at the edge.

To support their vision and go-to-market targets, they implemented Majesco Policy for P&C on the Majesco CloudInsurer® platform for 2 products in 10 states, in 10 weeks, followed by 4 additional products in 11 states in 10 weeks, while creating the microservices data and integration foundation.   This was followed by implementation of Majesco Billing for P&C and Majesco Claims for P&C in 12 weeks.

Check out their story via this webinar or the 2018 ITC Panel.

Tier 1 Insurer – Rideshare and Cyber Products

A leading tier 1 insurer with an extensive innovation program sought a platform to rapidly launch new and innovative products across any of their business units with differing scope and lines of business, and that would scale as needed. They used an MVP-based approach to run programs in parallel while blueprinting and scoping additional programs, for which a new rideshare and a new cyber product for two different entities were to be launched.

They selected Majesco insurance platform solutions including Majesco P&C Core Suite, Majesco Insurance Data & Analytics Platform, Majesco Digital1^st® Insurance and Majesco CloudInsurer® as their platform as a service (PaaS) to to launch the incubation of personal, commercial and specialty products. They launched both products separately in 11 weeks. Future programs are being scoped and planned across various business units based on the successful launch of these initial products.

Avinew – Insurance Company Startup

Avinew, an InsurTech insurance company, is looking to reinvent auto insurance for the age of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Through a direct-to-consumer model, Avinew is looking to reward customers for buying safer cars and to promote the safety, savings and freedom that come with autonomy. Avinew’s front-end quote and insurance app, both mobile and online, will use Majesco’s SaaS, cloud-based Majesco P&C Core Suite and extensive APIs to create a fully-managed service to power its growth plans and provide cutting-edge services to their customers.

Avinew selected Majesco P&C Core Suite on Majesco CloudInsurer® as the foundation of its business operations. The selection was based on several factors, including Majesco’s proven track record of helping other companies deliver speed-to-market, with a 12-week benchmark for minimum viable products; its integration and microservices-based capabilities; and its innovative partner ecosystem which is designed to bring the most cutting-edge consumer and technology trends to insurance.

Check out their story on the 2019 ITC Panel and the press release.

Your Next Great Idea

The universal theme among all of these great ideas is the use of Majesco’s insurance platform solutions. Majesco platforms prepare your organization for innovations and ideas that you have just developed or those you are currently developing. For larger insurers with “a large ship to steer” toward transformation, Majesco platform technologies and services can help you test, launch and pivot quickly — turning ideas into reality in a matter of weeks. To establish your platform for success, contact Majesco today and be sure to download Insurance Platforms – A Burning Platform for Market Leadership in the Digital Era of Insurance.

[i] “2019 InsurTech investment already ahead of 2018 total; policy administration systems in focus,” Willis Towers Watson, October 23, 2019, https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en-US/News/2019/10/2019-insurtech-investment-already-ahead-of-2018-total-policy-administration-systems-in-focus

[ii] Majesco press release