The insurance industry still struggles with a long time to market due to outdated legacy software, long-entrenched inefficient processes, and functional silos.
In a fast-moving landscape with new risks emerging, insurers can't rely on the traditional way of developing and managing insurance products. Customers expect to receive personalized insurance products quickly.
Therefore, the need for fast and accurate product development transformation is becoming more apparent.
Data Drives Innovation
The deluge of data is playing a profound role in how insurance providers make and price policies, underwrite risk, and manage claims. Insurance carriers are using data generated from smart devices such as fitness trackers and telematics to build more personalized products that are in high demand and attract potential customers.
Steadily, carriers are trying to make data the bedrock of their customer-centric insurance products that unlock new opportunities and provide business value.
The Importance of Digitalization
However, insurance companies that conduct research won't be able to fully leverage the power of data without undergoing the process of digitalization, which enhances claims and risk management.
Many insurance providers are already reaping the rewards from automating different business processes, such as a significant reduction in time to market, optimized underwriting processes, improved product performance, and insightful customer segmentation.
Every insurance product manager who's able to iterate and test fast will be well-placed to adapt to changing market conditions.
What is Insurance Product Management?
Product management describes a system in which all aspects relating to an insurance product are handled from one place.
Product management practices involve but are not limited to the creation and implementation of products, pricing, sales, and market research.
What is the Role of An Insurance Product Manager?
Insurance product managers work closely with other team members to control the development of insurance policies while adhering to the organization's general insurance product strategy.
Below are only some of the responsibilities that a product manager is assigned in an insurance company:
- Oversee the development of new products through an in-depth segmentation strategy.
- Manage existing insurance products to determine what modifications to make.
- Ensure new insurance products effectively address customer needs and solve problems in new markets.
- Enforce relevant risk and compliance procedures for business activities.
An insurance product manager (along with the help of a product owner) enables carriers to expand current products to take advantage of new market opportunities and drive revenue.
Modern Market Demands Require Changes in Product Management
In order to reduce the time to market, insurance companies must find ways of breaking down silos between business professionals and IT.
Breaking Down Silos
Most business professionals lack technical skills and don't speak the same language as IT. In an age when digital transformation is a necessary component in creating competitive customer-centric insurance products and reducing time-to-market, a successful candidate for the position of product manager need to become bilingual.
Speaking the same language would break down the current siloed models currently in the insurance industry.
However, it's difficult to expect insurance product managers with little technical knowledge to become proficient in developing software products and responsible for maintenance.
Problems with the Way Product Management is Handled Today
There's also another challenge to developing digital insurance products efficiently. Insurance product development and management rely on data to properly function, but this data is frequently stored on various systems.
These disconnected systems are a major problem for health insurance companies because they prevent staff members from accessing relevant data in a timely manner – for instance, they prevent product managers from having a thorough understanding of policies that are being quoted and sold in a particular market in one place.
To make matters worse, many insurance providers are saddled with legacy systems that require a high level of expertise to maintain and operate. As a result, carriers are incapable of adapting to market changes because it may take weeks before programmers can make updates to policies or help develop new ones.
Therefore, in order to enhance insurance product management, insurance providers need to extract the rules buried deep inside legacy code and centralize them in business rules engines. This will allow them to instantly create new policies or make changes to existing ones.
Benefits of Business Rules Engines
Even though insurance companies have always developed customer segments to better understand their policyholders and prospects, the introduction of business rules engines has enabled insurers to generate more revenue, improve efficiency, and cut down on expenses while delivering value to their policyholders.
The product team can develop new successful products or improve existing products without waiting on the IT department to make changes to the underlying code. This translates into new insurance products being created in mere minutes instead of weeks or months.
Quoting
A user-friendly portal system can also quickly generate quotes for potential policyholders. Quoting policies is simple and transparent because the relevant information is easily accessible to the manager or broker. This is essential for improving the customer's experience.
Product managers use Higson to write and manage powerful condition-based rules in a user-friendly user graphical interface.
Higson helps put together correct policies and filters out the ones that don’t meet the specified requirements.
By using a rules-powered portal product managers can be sure that their sales agents always offer customers and prospects applicable policies. For instance, a rules engine prevents an insurer from offering coverage to individuals who don't qualify for it.
Managing Insurance Products with Higson
As insurers enter new markets they can offer different versions of their insurance products that meet their company goals while remaining compliant with local laws and regulations. When several versions are created, Higson users can use the Timeline feature to schedule which one to make available and at what time.
Higson is helping the world's leading insurers manage innovative products to meet customer expectations. To learn how your organization can take advantage of Higson's features, schedule a FREE call with one of our Higson experts today.
