The Future and Insurance Meet in Savannah

History meets the future in Savannah, Georgia at Majesco’s Convergence 2019.   Steeped in history from its beginning in 1733 when 120 passengers of the good ship “Anne” landed on a bluff high along the Savannah River, the 13th and final American colony “Georgia” was established with the first city – Savannah.  Through its history, Savannah has had a renaissance, a city that has honored its history while building a future with a broad industry base of manufacturing, an active port and transportation hub, tourism, the military, and businesses such as health care, that have allowed it to thrive and grow in rapidly changing world.

Just like Savannah, the insurance industry is undergoing a renaissance, honoring its history and risk management foundation, while building a future aligned with a rapidly changing marketplace underpinned by new technologies, new customer expectations and new market boundaries.  And like the industry, Majesco is honoring its history while embracing a new future of insurance that we shared with the attendees at Convergence 2019.

From the very first keynote address, it was clear that something was different. The level of electricity was higher. The excitement was palpable. The collaboration and discussions flowed.  During three days of inspired meetings and conversations, Majesco clients, partners, guests, associates and industry experts shared, discussed, analyzed and strategized about how together we can create the Future of Insurance.

Adding to the electricity was a record-setting attendance — 50% higher than the previous year, with a larger than ever agenda, encompassing over 35 sessions and 66 presenters and panelists. It brought together a broad group of elite insurance business and technology leaders all focused on one goal — preparing their businesses for the future of insurance.  Convergence had a refreshing mix of ideas, optimism, innovation and insight on how insurers are transforming to meet today’s and tomorrow’s insurance dilemmas and opportunities.

Finding a Path to the Future of Insurance

In today’s world, responsiveness matters. Responsiveness is the healthy result of quick recognition (that something needs to change) and active speed (the pace at which the organization moves). Leaders are responsible for the organization’s responsiveness and place their organizations on the paths that lead to success or failure.

The trends and initiatives we have tracked over the last four years are exposing three distinct paths that have significant implications to growth and future relevance for insurers.  The three paths include:

• Modernize the Existing Business – Replace legacy systems in a private or public cloud to keep and grow today’s business.
• Optimize the Business Today – Create new digital capabilities to protect and grow today’s customer base.
• Create a New Business for Tomorrow – Build new business models for a new generation of customers and products.

Our 2019 Strategic Priorities Report reflects where the industry is and where it may be going and was on display at Convergence 2019.   We saw insurers who are embracing the disruption and leading the way by modernizing their business to establish a new foundation, others who were optimizing their business using digital and data as well as leveraging new technologies and capabilities, and then those who are creating a new business for the future with transformative business models and products.

Each of these companies are early movers … and are pathfinders to the Future of Insurance. They are creating a new foundation that will provide the ability for them to respond to change rapidly, experiment with new business models, products and services, and innovate their business each step of the way.  For those who were trying to find their path, they found many inspiring examples from peers in the industry.

Speed and Leadership are a Powerful Combination

With so much disruption and change – technological revolution, fast-changing customer needs and expectations, and shifts to an on-demand, sharing, Gig and platform economy – it was exciting to see how insurance leaders are aggressively responding, reflecting the actions of leaders from our 2019 Strategic Priorities Report including:

• Leaders are 39% ahead of Laggards in the API and Platform economy
• Leaders are 42%+ ahead of Laggards and Followers in embracing partnerships, ecosystems and InsurTech
• Leaders are 24% ahead of Laggards and Followers with extensive distribution strategies
• Leaders are 20-30% ahead of Laggards and Followers with customer digital engagement capabilities
• Leaders are 37% ahead of Laggards in creating a new business for the future

Some highlights from the sessions at Convergence include:

• An insurer committed to providing a personalized, best-in-class customer experience implemented the Majesco P&C Core Suite in 8 months to modernize their business.
• Another insurer implemented Majesco P&C Billing in 90 days to support the launch of some new, innovative products for the future business.
• One insurer implemented Majesco Distribution Management in 6 months to support and expand their agent and broker channel, helping to optimize the business and support their growth strategy.
• An insurer implemented the Majesco Data & Analytics Platform in 6 months, giving them an array of new reports to optimize the business.
• An insurer shared how they use Majesco AdvicePlus, an innovative robo advisor solution for both online and offline digital advice, helping to optimize distribution.
• A number of startups and incumbent insurers for both P&C and L&A described how they are creating the business for tomorrow by implementing Majesco Core Suites and Majesco Digital1^st® Insurance for their new business models and new products with speed … many in less than 12 weeks, but some in less than 35 days!

These leaders are embracing disruption.  As Brian Solis, the Monday keynote speaker commented, “disrupt yourself before you are disrupted.”

Ecosystems are the Future of Insurance

Insurance is historically a network-dependent industry – particularly around distribution.   But a key success factor in the Future of Insurance is that it is no longer desirable or optimal to “go it alone” in a rapidly growing “platform economy” where ecosystems provide a multiplier effect for growth. No individual company has all of the resources, time or capabilities required for success in this new era of insurance. Ecosystems accelerate the learning curve and adoption of new services and technologies. Partnerships that are part of ecosystems bring together the strengths of all participants (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts), but more importantly, partnerships create a powerful multiplier effect.

Convergence highlighted this ecosystem power – bringing together a robust selection of partners with API-based apps available in Majesco’s marketplace, Digital1^st EcoExchange™, that allows companies to subscribe to use them on demand, rather than as a code repository that requires greater integration effort and cost.  The marketplace provides access to valuable traditional and new technologies, data sources, services, and channels without the multiplication of complex relationships, time and costs … allowing customers to focus on their customer demands and growth.  Majesco clients can now take advantage of these partners’ apps:  CyberSource, HazardHub, LexisNexis, Majesco, SmartyStreets, Splice Software, and Verisk, with more coming on a regular basis.  These partner apps add a tremendous amount of plug-and-play functionality for insurers, but their method of integration represents a leap forward in microservices capabilities for insurance. These types of integrations will allow flexibility in the innovation process.

A new partnership with DataRobot for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) was also announced, with a detailed session highlighting its integration with Majesco Core Suites.   This partnership will make AI and ML integrated into core business processes but, more importantly, accessible and available to all Majesco customers — where AI and ML are too often inaccessible to many insurers due to the lack of access to data scientist talent. The Majesco/DataRobot partnership will level the playing field by integrating Majesco solutions with the DataRobot platform to automate the process of building and operationalizing insurance models within any part of the value chain.

Platforms for an On-Demand World in the Future of Insurance

Insurance legacy business models cannot survive in an on-demand world. Customers who live in the moment through their devices respond to offers that cater precisely to their wants and needs, whenever and wherever they want. The emerging paradigm to serve these customer expectations is the platform, which can be defined briefly as “a medium built to solve a customer’s immediate need and shifts from a selling to buying focus.”

Over the last 10-20 years, insurers have been buying policy, claims and billing systems that meet the needs of the old business model —not customer systems for a new era of insurance. While the modern, rules-based systems introduced vital flexibility and efficiency, they were still targeted to insurance siloes and insufficient to support innovative new business models needed for the future of insurance.  In the new digital paradigm, an insurer’s core system must be a customer system with traditional core plus additional capabilities.  This requires a fundamental shift from on-premise systems to open, services-based technology architecture in the cloud.

In many of the sessions, we heard case studies of incumbent and startup insurers who are leveraging Majesco Core Suite and Digital1^st™ platforms to accelerate their path to the Future of Insurance.  And with the preview of the new Version 11 of P&C and Version 11 of L&A and Group core suites, customers will get expanded capabilities and features that will prepare insurers for the age of open architectures, rapid configurability, Cloud/SaaS and enhanced ecosystem connectivity and built-in integrations to deliver speed and scale.

A whole new business vocabulary is emerging for the Future of Insurance with platforms … test and learn, minimum viable products (MVP), incubate new products, niche market opportunities, ecosystem revenue multiplier effect, greenfields, pay-as-you-use, and much more.  We have only seen the beginning of the power of the platform … and it is exciting, amazing and impactful!

The Future of Insurance Starts Here

Majesco’s vision, strategy and overall brand position is clearly focused on helping insurers build the next generation of their businesses and the industry at speed and scale. Our commitment to connect insurers with the products, insights and best practices they need to execute their digital transformation strategies through our expertise, technology and leadership will build on our rich history and the cutting-edge innovation and value we are bringing to the insurance industry.  We are committed to helping insurers step into the future with the confidence to know that they are ready to capture all of its opportunities.

Convergence 2019 lived up to its Webster dictionary definition … “the merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a unified whole.” Convergence for the insurance industry is well underway.

And … The Future of Insurance is here.