This second blog in my financial services blog series is focused on the insurance industry, and how recent trends in predictive analytics, along with advanced storage capabilities, ensure that insurance companies have the data processing power and scalability they need to launch new offerings and keep happy and loyal subscribers.

According to a PBS historical documentary, in 1751 Benjamin Franklin created the first organized insurance company called Philadelphia Contributor-ship to offer fire insurance. Today, insurance companies face challenges around how to stay competitive with premium costs while also supporting customer loyalty. And on the back end, another common challenge relates to storing and best utilizing massive amounts of data using modern technologies.

Contemporary trends in hybrid-cloud capabilities are needed to wrangle big data collection, telemetry, and analytics that help insurance companies remain competitive. Powerful solutions with scalability help to alchemize valuable consumer data to consistently allow insurance companies to offer a more efficient model of service.

Overall, there is so much churn and transition happening in the insurance industry today which has created a need for the accelerated adoption of hybrid-cloud technology coupled with efficient and sustainable storage. In the last couple of years, during the pandemic in particular, insurance companies had to act fast in uncharted territory to provide consistent services for their consumers.

51% of insurers believe public cloud use gives an advantage over
competitors with defined success criteria.
-Ernst and Young

Detailed big data analytics provide truer risk assessments

Regardless of what type of policy Franklin proposed, he had the same goal as insurance companies have in modern times: to ease financial burdens that can occur if disaster strikes. These days technology makes insurance processes more streamlined.

Say a consumer was looking for homeowners' insurance in an area that was prone to threats of wildfire, which can raise consumer premiums. The ability for homeowners' insurance companies to gather more precise data to better examine risk assessments and decide exactly which block a consumer lives on can potentially make premiums more affordable  for subscribers if the risk of fire is less.

Health and life insurance companies use more detailed health risk assessment through data collected by apps that track healthier lifestyles and can lower the cost on their premiums. For auto insurance, detailed data analytics offers a better assessment of driver's risks, which can lead to lower rates for drivers.

Auto insurance companies can also easily use predictive analytics to collect, track, store, and analyze detailed data with telemetry straight from a modern car's computer systems, to avoid fraudulent claims, for example. More precise risk assessments improve profit margins while keeping customers happy. Using big data analytics solutions ensures that successful insurance brands can consistently offer great service and reward subscribers with lower rates.

New age insuretech companies are on the rise

The newer age companies born in the cloud can quickly mine data better right out of the gate and offer lower customized premiums to entice consumers. Innovations in data analytics simplify some of the bigger challenges for both new insurance companies, built in the cloud, and longstanding insurance brands by providing ways to offer a better experience for consumers, from signing up, to premium offerings, and claims processing.

Consumer demand requires powerful cloud and compute solutions

As cloud technology matures, insurance companies can more easily launch new products and services for rapidly changing consumer markets and needs. Insurance companies  use incredibly large data sets (such as tens of millions of claim's data points) and must keep that data secure, accurate, and scalable in the cloud.

Traditional insurance companies are making big transformations to modernize and migrate infrastructures and big data. Even during the process of making big moves to the cloud, resources need to be available to avoid any lag time in providing fast services to consumers. All of this has created a need for strong compute power and streamlined hybrid-cloud operational models.

Open, flexible platforms can connect to the cloud quickly, perform fast and secure data processing, and provide reliable services so that insurance companies can operate in a hybrid-cloud environment without moving their whole infrastructure at once.

Efficiencies in risk assessments make for loyal subscribers

While Ben Franklin could not have predicted the current digital transformational climate that modern insurance companies are going through now, his early insurance model proved that insurance products and services provide much-needed peace of mind. Innovative technology ensures accurate data driven risk assessments to provide the best in services to subscribers.

Insurance companies need to scale operations within hybrid-cloud infrastructures while providing continuity of service. But they also must handle the heat and size of all this data.Cisco can help with simplified hybrid cloud solutions for insurance enterprise IT Teams to manage multi-cloud service operations at scale with insight and actions, to consistently satisfy loyal consumers faster than ever before, end of story.

Request a demo of Cisco Intersight or Intersight Workload Optimizer to see for yourself the power of Cisco hybrid-cloud solutions.

Resources

Read the first blog in this financial services series with a focus on banking: Cisco Solutions Accelerate and Simplify Hybrid-cloud Operations for Financial Services Enterprises

Read more about how innovations from Cisco can accelerate your hybrid-cloud operations.