Insurers have yet another cloud option available to them, as Informatica announced several new insurance clients using their services. Although not a new offering (the company launched cloud services in 2006), it's relatively new coming from an insurance industry known as technologically risk averse. According to a recent Gartner Group study, annual spending on cloud-related transactions may grow to almost $150 billion worldwide by 2014.
Informatica's initial claim to fame was its ability to consolidate data from many customer touch points. Since it launched its various cloud offerings, the company has garnered business from a variety of vertical markets.
Informatica notes the following insurance customers are using Informatica Cloud: Delta Dental of Michigan, Delta Dental of Wisconsin, Frank Crystal & Company, HTH Worldwide, Lincoln Financial, Lockton Companies LLP, National Guardian Life Insurance Company, PSA Financial & Insurance Services and Sterling & Sterling, Inc.
According to the company, it's delivering SaaS integration to enable fast, easy customer relationship management integration, as well as synchronized data between front-office and back-office systems such as Vertafore’s Sagitta and AMS360 agency management systems, contract and licensing systems, and more.
The company says carriers are using cloud-based CRM as their "next generation desktop," providing access to data from contract and licensing systems on which products independent brokers/agents are licensed to sell, and data from back-office policy administration systems on what these parties have already sold.
Other new uses for cloud computing include standards compliance, which ensures that agents and carriers can exchange information effectively, organizational access to critical data and fraud prevention, which is facilitated in real time with aggregated data - required to identify fraud before it affects the business.
"An increasing number of insurance companies rely on Informatica to address their unique challenges of integrating disparate data from a multitude of channels, including adjusters, brokers, service providers, underwriters and other related parties," notes the company.
Pat Speer is the Editor of Insurance Networking News, a Source Media publication.
