Adaptable Technologies

Increasingly, the insurance industry depends on flexible and responsive technology. Automation of field services, claims and back-office systems is now the norm. Customers expect high-quality, timely Web sites and 24/7 service.

Technology also continues to alter the competitive landscape. Cost-effective operations require more data and sophisticated analytic reasoning. In the on-demand economy of the 21st century, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a vital technology for sharing data among disparate systems -- allowing intensive, strategic data and decision-support analytics to be effectively deployed.

Rules-based systems are another key technology. They make business logic computer friendly, comprehensible and adaptable for knowledge workers in a fast-changing business climate.

SOA allows the agile sharing of data and applications. Rules-based systems permit the proficient sharing of intellectual property. Together with quantum leaps in affordable computing power, these enabling technologies will stimulate and sustain the most powerful insurance systems of the next decade.