The “Insurance Recommendation System - (Irs)” Is Needed Now For Carriers And Customers

( www.ManishJaiswal.com ) There has been lot of assessment that Insurance Companies are very slow in adopting technology. Why? For historical years, the industry was closed because of self sustaining model, where current insurance premium collected and regulation was good enough for the carriers and the consumers to survive and thrive. Policy being sold by an Agents or brokerage firm in the friendly neighborhood, never really created the need or pushed the boundaries of Technology to upgrade the delivery capability or the service call. Now, with the recent economic downturn and slow revival, the debate is raging on how to grow the industry and reach out to consumers, who are still not insured or under insured. The question and search is “Can the new technology, say Web 2.0 – social networking, help?” Well, let’s inspect at the current status.

It is disheartening but true that even in United States of America, where Insurance Industry size is over 1.3 trillion dollar (largest in the world, with no close 2nd or 3rd), Technology has not kept pace with the growth and maturity of this business. Barring few names viz. www.GEICO.com , www.Progressive.com and www.Esurance.com , I don’t see any Insurance Carrier being very aggressive on web based delivery channel. The traditional spend on technology has been into Policy Admin (PAS), Underwriting and Claims Systems (read software) but very limited into Web 2.0 or the future Web 3.0 .

Do a Google search and you may not find many carriers or Brokerage firms offering true Compare and Buy options besides www.eHealth.com or www.Insure.com . Yes, you will see huge list of referral companies, which take your data and information online and sell it to the nearest zip code Agents to serve your need offline. I am amazed, because American Corporate World is very competitive. A new good idea in any industry is quickly picked by cross-section of Industry to offer better and effective solution to reduce cost and improve service. And the brilliant idea of ‘Compare and Buy’ exist for some time now in electronics, books, movies, travel or clothes. So, there is no reason, why American Insurance World should not pick the virtues of Web and Internet to push and promote their Product and Services as eBusiness. I must however, mention that all Carriers and Brokerage Firms have decent Website but mostly static or INTRANET. The need of the hour is to jump on to Web 2.0 to get onto Web 3.0 to lunch “The Insurance Recommendation System – IRS”. So, what is IRS?

The Insurance Recommendation System (IRS) will take the virtues and technological development so far on Web 2.0, which is also known as “Social Networking” web tools to graduate into Web 3.0 version. IRS will be an intelligent system with Straight Through Processing (STP) capabilities and shall be based on ‘Cloud Computing’, ‘eBusiness’ and ‘ACORD Platform’. Indeed, if The Insurance Recommendation System (IRS) is implemented in totality, it has the potential to change, the way Insurance is bought or sold across globe. The IRS will display following features (but not limited to) on search at the given Site:

For Customers (B2C)

1. Compare and Buy Insurance Policy across carriers
2. Neutral list of the best Policy in the market
3. Neutral List of the best Coverage in the market
4. Provide personal risk assessment to the customer
5. Provide gap analysis on past insurance purchase
6. Highlight current insurance needs
7. Predict future insurance needs
8. Provide Premium Vs Coverage matrix with exclusions
9. Provide Premium Vs Co-pay matrix with exclusions
10. Product and Service star ratings (scale of 5 stars)

For Carriers and Brokerage Firms ( B2B )

1. Customer profile analysis including household
2. Customer purchase analysis & risk matrix
3. Web surfer (Fence sitter) analysis
4. Policy renewal and communication
5. Community insurance analysis
6. Predict future purchase analysis of an individual / household or community

The IRS will sit as the Top Layer on any given Policy Admin and Database system currently used by Carriers or Brokerage Firms. Yes, IRS will replace expensive Agency Portal, Illustration (Home Office FOS) and CRM IT spend completely. For more details on my idea about technology, architecture, features, integration etc on “Insurance Recommendation System (IRS), you are welcome to connect with me at manishkumarjaiswal2001@yahoo.com .

By

Manish Jaiswal
Consulting - Insurance. USA
http://www.ManishJaiswal.com

“Insurance Recommendation System” is the term coined by Manish K. Jaiswal. Copyright. 2009.