A unified orchestration layer to transform life and annuity insurance operations

Life and annuity (L&A) insurance is a complex industry in which customer interactions are highly sensitive, so digital transformation must take a careful and appropriate approach. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel. L&A insurers already achieve many good outcomes that need preserving, but they must take the opportunity to improve efficiency and effectiveness by digitizing and automating existing operations.

There are significant challenges to transforming L&A insurance operations in this way, though. Because of prior acquisitions and multiple product lines, L&A insurers typically have complex organizational designs and run on a variety of underlying core admin platforms using legacy technology stacks. There are often different operating procedures for the same process across products and little existing process automation because of business silos.

In addition, investment dollars have neglected L&A insurers' middle and back offices for years as they've instead poured into improving front-office operations and customer interface experiences. Much back-office work is manual and based on old-school ticketing systems. Employees need training and cross-training as they move around the highly divided business. Most importantly, though, this is a challenge that imposing a single core platform on all product and service lines can address. Portfolios are so varied that no one platform could function well enough, and the cost of integrating systems and data and customizing the business' platform would be too high. So what can organizations do to tackle these challenges?

Although there isn't a single platform that solves all L&A insurers' problems, there is a solution that harnesses and unifies their existing technologies.

A unified orchestration layer (UOL) is a system of engagement with core legacy platforms. It sits on top of existing technologies and integrates them into a single servicing platform using application programming interfaces (APIs). The UOL is platform agnostic – so it works with what the insurer currently uses and builds on Genpact's business process management suite, Cora Orchestration. This means manual workflows can automate using insurance-specific artificial intelligence and machine learning accelerators.

Our UOL solution offers an improved employee experience by:

• Acting as a single servicing platform
• Orchestrating digitization and automation in operations, freeing up employees for more complex tasks and a greater focus on customer interactions

Superior process management through:

• Open architecture that enables easy integration of existing and new technologies as insurers start to move applications to cloud
• Greater data granularity from underlying platforms so insurers can harness the power of that data with analytics
• A full view of operations with Enterprise360, which curates data across all areas of the business, creates insights, and connects the ecosystem to predict and take action at speed
• A configurable platform for accelerated implementation and business value

And enhanced customer experience with:

• A single view of the customer (policyholder)
• A holistic customer experience at each interaction point
• Improved access to deeper data, drives transparency for the customer

Our UOL delivers significant business impacts. Insurers typically see:

• Cost efficiency improvements of 25–40% by enabling straight-through processing
• A further 10–15% cost-efficiency improvements through standardized and simplified operations
• A reduction in new employee training times of 30% or more
• Improved workforce performance management using insights derived from broader and deeper data

Transforming your insurance business needn't involve scouring the market for a brand-new one-stop platform solution and investing large sums in switching your foundational technologies to fit it. Plenty of insurers' existing systems are fit-for-purpose, and all they need is an intelligent system engagement overlay that can introduce appropriate automation, unlock data, and smooth workflows. We have it, and we have the experience to customize it to insurers' specific needs. Transform, improve, grow, and drive value with our UOL.