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Susana Schwartz
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Chubb Uses Intuitive Business Intelligence Tools to Gather Data From Disparate Systems and Migrate It to Decision-Support Systems

In any business intelligence initiative, it is imperative that BI tools leverage insurers' existing environments -- no matter how multifarious or far-flung. In order for Chubb Insurance Company of Europe (CICE; London), a subsidiary of Chubb Corp., to empower its business users, it needed a BI solution that could handle a phased approach to incorporation of the parent company's data from U.S., Asian, Latin American and European systems, as well as data from its own business and claims units.

Supporting Specific Business Questions

The key to success, contends Thomas, was to implement BI tools and analysis facilities only where it would provide direct support of specific business questions. "Because we are a niche provider focused on high-value, low- volume business, our systems for claims and underwriting are predicated on something other than just getting policies issued in under 10 seconds," he explains. "We have to focus on capturing better information for better business decisions so we can deliver a value-add that mainstream carriers cannot."

For that reason, Thomas relates, BI components have been designed to answer specific questions around claims payment philosophies, underwriting profitability and customer service -- such as, "Is one broker closing more business than another?" or, "Is a line of business performing better in one country than in another?"

Within EMIR, the Chubb multidimensional database is used to build Cognos (Ottawa) PowerPlay cubes, which become the data sources for Cognos ReportStudio dashboards. (PowerPlay is integrated, along with other Cognos BI products, under the umbrella of "Cognos 8 Business Intelligence.") "Within PowerPlay cubes, users drill down by clicking on a dimension and expanding it out to the next level in the hierarchy [or by bringing in a new dimension or by nesting one within another] to be filtered," explains Thomas. "We like that users can slice and dice information in formats they choose, rather than being forced into preformatted regimes."

Because Chubb, like many carriers, has in-house tools, integration capabilities were essential to piecing together a holistic BI environment. In Chubb's case, the Cognos tool integrated nicely with a proprietary drill-down and list-reporting tool called Kio, according to Thomas. Kio reads the multidimensional Oracle database used to build the Cognos cubes. "When we hit the drill-down button in Cognos PowerPlay, the context of the cube into which you drilled and filtered is then passed onto Kio," which displays a list of the detailed transactions that make up the figures in Cognos, Thomas says.

After drilling down, users can get down to a "single cell," which contains the information they are interested in. The list of underlying transactions, such as insurance policies, is provided by Kio.

Of the 1,200 people in Chubb's European operation, about 800 use these broad BI tools for analysis of brokerage relationships, growth opportunities and anticipation of events, according to Thomas. About 425 of CICE's employees use multidimensional analysis tools, and dashboards are used by around 80 people. "Now we are able to talk about 'outsourced' or 'insourced' analysis that comes from our business people," adds Thomas. "In a matter of minutes they can do the analysis without bothering an actuary or someone in finance."

The next step for the organization is to continue to move toward a holistic approach to BI that enables different areas of the organization to view the same data through the unique prism they require. "The goal is consistency, so that underwriters in Europe work in the same way as those in the Netherlands or America, or so that claims adjusters can answer questions without going to second sources of data in different lines of business," Thomas says. "We want consistency across geographies, countries, products or financial elements." --S.S.

Main Story: The Hype Around BI 2.0 Heralds Functionality Changes Surrounding Business Intelligence, Which Helps Insurers Gather Information to Make Business Decisions
The next generation of business intelligence tools will be integrated within business processes themselves, enabling improved forecasting and real-time data analysis.

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