Go, Go, Gadget: Top Emerging Technology Tools for Insurers
Setting the Table for Innovation
You've been a major voice on the potential for tablet technologies to change the insurance industry. What kinds of tablet initiatives has Builders Mutual implemented?
Graeme Boddy, Builders Mutual: It's actually a very powerful tool for business intelligence -- we've found that we can download a lot of information for our sales force so that they have graphical representatives of the data when they go in to review things with agents. The sales force can have very robust discussions and review items on the tablet, with the agents able to click and look for themselves at how well they're doing on the premium they're giving us, what their loss ratios are, what their claims histories look like.
What's keeping tablets from becoming more integrated in the insurance industry?
Boddy: Tablets are really great at content consumption, showing and bringing data to the table -- as with business intelligence. But at this point, the tablet is not ready to replace a laptop, and people do not want to carry both. I'm hopeful that as Microsoft brings its Surface tablet and its professional tools to market, given that it has such a huge investment in Microsoft Office, we'll see a bit more content creation capability in the tablet platform. That might lead to replacing some of the laptops with tablets.
[Elite 8 2012: Graeme Boddy Accelerates IT Development To Stay Ahead ]
Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio
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