Explore how business rules engines are scaling the underwriting process in insurance, enabling faster decisions, improving risk assessment accuracy, and reducing dependency on manual processes.
Higson wins Best Software Provider (Digital Back End) at the European Insurance Technology Awards 2024, highlighting its role in transforming insurance with business rules engine technology.
Uncover answers to the most frequently asked questions about Business Rules Engine (BRE) technology. From implementation and maintenance to benefits and best use cases, learn how BREs can transform business rule management for greater agility and compliance.
Business Rules are instructions on how the system (software or service) should behave given the exact conditions. The typical business rules structure looks like this:
Business Rules usually refer to statements that concern a business model, pricing, offer, product/service attributes, or communication with a customer.
The following statements are Business Rules:
As the name suggests, business people create business rules.
The companies use business rules among others to:
The when-then statement is generic, and it can cover a lot. Consider the following sentence:
Is it a Business Rule or not? It might be, but it's standard e-commerce button behavior, and the business people usually don't focus on it. Instead, they concentrate on the Rules that are not obvious and need a business decision (such as the amount of the discount).
The examples in the previous subchapter are simple on purpose. They highlight the main idea. In business reality, business rules are far more complicated. The more complicated system or service, the more sophisticated the rules are.
Business Rules should help you simplify and organize the business process.
A Business Rules Engine is a software that helps you manage and execute Business Rules. The main advantage of the engine is the separation of the business logic from the hard code. It leads to:
The users might model the rules as (depending on an engine):
Usually, Business Rules Engines deliver a user interface in the form of:
Business Rules Engine might come as:
You can install Business Rules Engines:
You should decide on a Business Rules Engine if at least one of the statements below is valid:
On the other hand, implementing the rules engine might occur an unnecessary effort, if:
It depends on several factors:
Are they business users, technical users, or both? Do they need the user interface? Do they prefer Excel? Higson provides the GUI and supports working in Excel.
Some solutions require installing a desktop native application on every user's computer. Others are browser-based (Higson, for instance), and it makes it easier to access the tool.
Most Business Rules Engines (including Higson) works both ways.
a) Simple (several when-then statements, almost none exceptions, no scoring needed)
Look for tools supporting:
b) Medium (hundreds when-then statements, some exceptions, simple scoring)
Look for tools supporting:
c) Advanced (thousands or more when-then statements, lots of exceptions, advanced scoring)
Look for tools supporting:
Higson is the best fit for advanced Business Rules. Decision trees or natural language processors with thousands of rules lose clarity. Decision tables are more straightforward to comprehend. Moreover, functions add unlimited possibilities to modeling.
