A recent article in National Underwriter listed the top 10 technology trends for insurance companies. One of the trends was “Web Services and SOA Tools.” Here is how this trend was described:
“P/C insurers operate a large ecosystem of systems and applications that integrate for seamless processing. In the past, companies had to hard-code integration between systems, which was costly, time-consuming, created challenges when applications were replaced and integration had to be redone, and was often difficult to overhaul due to technology incompatibility. The use of Web services/service-oriented architecture (SOA) enables companies to deploy services instead of using one-to-one integration. These technologies will help insurers improve their straight-through processing (STP) capabilities and reduce integration costs.”
While the article was specifically addressing insurance companies and their internal operations, it also applies to the agents selling those companies’ products.
Agencies have struggled with creating “seamless processing” between the agency information contained in an agency management system, carrier internal processing systems, and other third-party applications an agency might elect to use to streamline their operations.
The days of information being trapped within the agency management system need to disappear. Vendors should not be the gatekeepers of that data and hold agencies hostage. They can no longer limit or control how, and under what circumstances, an agency has access to their client and prospect information. Client and prospect data want to be free of the artificial borders and boundaries that still exist.
Web services and SOA are two examples of technologies that are already in place that make it much easier to allow different systems to communicate and share data. Web services are simply a standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone.
Other industries are rapidly implementing Web services and open architectures to extend their reach and allow third-party developers to extend the core platform. Examples in other industries include:
- Salesforce.com: This company has grown over the last 10 years to become a standard for selling cloud computing and software. Part of this growth is a result of the AppExchange, a marketplace for third-party developers who have created over 1,000 applications and services that extend the utility of the Salesforce CRM and the Salesforce.com platform.
- Apple iPhone: There are now over 100,000 applications that iPhone users can download and use on the iPhone platform. As you may have heard, Apple tightly controls the types of applications it allows in its store. Yet, these third-party apps have made the iPhone one of the top mobile devices.
- Infusionsoft: This is the marketing platform I currently use to manage all of my marketing activities. It comes with an extensive application programming interface that allows anyone with some programming skills to move information into and out of the cloud database. This provides me with great flexibility to customize their platform to meet my specific needs.
The above examples are just a few. These industries understand that you can’t control and keep clients simply by holding their data hostage. If you have created a good platform that performs well, then you only add more value for existing clients by opening access to that platform.
Agency system vendors and insurance companies need to stop talking about open access and, instead, take concrete steps to open access to data for the agents they serve.
I hope someone from Vertafore is reading your blog! Agents for years have felt like agency automation vendors have held their data captive!
I think they are working to do better with the API’s but it is still expensive for a agency to “get” “their” data.