This put up is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
Having your head “within the clouds” may not be fascinating, however storing your knowledge “within the cloud” actually has its advantages. As extra folks and firms transfer to cloud storage for his or her private {and professional} knowledge, the gold commonplace is cloud-native software program that’s constructed with flexibility and safety in thoughts. Learn on to study the fundamentals of cloud-native software program and its rising recognition throughout the insurance coverage business.
What’s cloud-native software program?
iCloud, Google Cloud, Dropbox, simply to call just a few: We’re all accustomed to cloud storage in our every day lives, if for no different purpose than it’s the place our pictures and music stay so we will entry them from our telephones, tablets, and computer systems with out carrying round a tough drive.
However what does it imply for a software program to truly be “cloud-native?” Similar to it sounds, cloud-native refers to a software program software that was constructed particularly to perform in a cloud (distributed and web-based) atmosphere, relatively than residing on a bodily drive or server.
Versus older functions that advanced to include cloud elements, cloud-native software program originates in its cloud-based type. For instance, you may’t obtain a model of “QuickBooks On-line” to your laptop regardless of how a lot you wish to, as a result of it solely exists within the cloud. Usually, tech merchandise which are offered as Software program-as-a-Service (SaaS) – and require an ongoing subscription relatively than a one-time buy – are cloud-native. AgentSync isn’t any exception.
One in all cloud-native software program’s defining elements is its capacity to be deployed rapidly, and obtain ongoing updates and enhancements that may be launched in real-time, with out requiring down-time or negatively impacting the software program’s different capabilities.
Key options of cloud-native software program embrace:
Microservices structure: You possibly can consider cloud-native software program as a set of “microservices” or “microapplications.” Google Cloud defines this as “particular person, loosely coupled elements” which means that as an alternative of 1 massive program, the best way we used to consider a bit of software program, cloud-native software program is constructed by various individually functioning components that type the entire.
Containerization: Due to this microservices structure, cloud-native software program can profit from its builders’ capacity to work on small items at a time, upgrading or fixing particular capabilities, with out impacting the software program as an entire. This is called containerization.
Steady integration: On account of the way it’s constructed, cloud-native software program can accommodate ongoing enhancements, bug fixes, and new integrations that aren’t attainable with legacy applied sciences. It’s the distinction between having to take your automobile into the store for a brand new tire and having the ability to patch a fast gap whereas on the run. The latter, like cloud-native infrastructure, causes much less disruption and little or no downtime in comparison with needing to close down a whole system to carry out upgrades or fixes.
API-first strategy: Since cloud-native software program is inherently constructed on a basis of microservices that combine, utilizing APIs to attach one software program to a different is a given.
Safety and compliance: The most important cloud computing suppliers, who deliver alongside top-of-the-line knowledge safety and compliance practices, energy most cloud-native software program. Huge names like Amazon Net Companies (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure provide their enterprise prospects assurance that the info they host for various cloud-native functions is secure and safe. For a lot of insurance coverage companies, the peace of thoughts that an organization as strong as Amazon is dealing with their knowledge safety is extra comforting than the thought of being accountable for it in-house.
The rise of cloud-native functions in insurance coverage
As increasingly software program strikes to cloud-based infrastructure, so does the know-how that powers the insurance coverage business. Regardless that cloud-native insurance coverage software program has been available because the early 2000s, insurance coverage companies haven’t all been fast to retire their legacy techniques and undertake cloud-native infrastructure.
This appears to be altering, and altering extra quickly, as we strategy the primary quarter-century mark. In accordance with a 2022 report by McKinsey & Company, insurers undertaking a 32 % annual development of their use of cloud companies by 2025. With a variety of room for development in its general use of cloud companies, the insurance coverage business can also be near the top of the list of industries that may reap the best financial rewards.
Examples of cloud-native software program in insurance coverage
Practically each, if not each, kind of services or products an insurance coverage enterprise makes use of every day might be discovered as a cloud-native software. That doesn’t imply most insurance coverage carriers, businesses, or MGAs have adopted cloud-native variations of their day-to-day software program, however the alternative to take action exists over a big portion of the integral insurance coverage capabilities.
A few of the most typical examples of cloud-native software program in insurance coverage embrace:
- Company administration techniques
- Claims administration techniques
- Coverage administration techniques
- Comparative score software program
- Buyer relationship administration techniques
- E mail advertising and marketing platforms
- Insurance coverage compliance administration techniques
Advantages of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and companies
Probably the most vital advantages of cloud-native insurance coverage know-how is its capacity to integrate with other applications via APIs, thus enabling corporations to automate once-manual duties and processes.
Different advantages that insurance coverage companies and the professionals working at them take pleasure in embrace:
Scalability: Cloud-native software program can assist one, 100, or 1 million customers (assuming it’s constructed on stable infrastructure). This permits corporations that spend money on cloud-native know-how merchandise to increase and contract rapidly, with out interruption to their every day operations. There’s no ready on buying a brand new software program license or putting in the product. It’s often so simple as the admin person inviting somebody to affix an current platform.
Or, alternatively, deactivating a person instantaneously, when wanted. That is notably relevant within the insurance coverage business, the place corporations have seasonal fluctuations and have to rapidly onboard new producers or adjusters to fulfill their calls for.
Flexibility: One of many greatest benefits of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and their employers is the pliability it offers folks to work from wherever. An insurance coverage agent or claims adjuster can theoretically log into the system they use to carry out their work from wherever with web entry. The identical can’t be mentioned for legacy techniques that require a person to be linked to a hard-wired community or pull knowledge from an on-premises server.
Enhanced buyer expertise: This profit bleeds over into one for insurance coverage customers too, nevertheless it most positively advantages insurance coverage companies and professionals once they can present a greater buyer expertise. Only one manner cloud-native software program can do that is by being extra dependable for folks whose job it’s to interface with prospects. An insurance coverage customer support consultant or licensed agent received’t lose entry to a buyer’s coverage info due to an area energy outage or server crash.
Cloud-native software program is constructed with redundancy in thoughts, and with assets unfold out over many factors to permit for a level of operational malfunction with out inflicting a serious snafu. Strive that with a legacy system that depends totally on the facility and web working in a single particular constructing always.
Diminished prices and useful resource use: What feels like a greater use of an insurance coverage group’s cash: paying for a number of workers members to take care of legacy know-how and on-prem servers, or paying the identical variety of workers to promote insurance policies and repair prospects? The reply must be apparent. Transferring to cloud-native insurtech can liberate workers’s time and the corporate’s cash to spend money on issues that’ll actually transfer the needle on income and buyer satisfaction – not simply assist keep the established order.
Innovation and aggressive benefit: With most new tech improvements taking place on the planet of cloud-native software program, insurance coverage organizations which are outfitted to embrace cloud know-how might be greatest positioned to reap the benefits of new developments. Innovation can snowball as an organization that’s already carried out a main cloud-based know-how can extra simply undertake others as they change into accessible (to not point out, they will combine the brand new ones into the present ones for even larger effectivity good points). Past the power to leverage new know-how because it comes out, these companies can even acquire a aggressive benefit within the battle for youthful insurance coverage expertise by offering a tech-forward worker expertise.
Advantages of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage customers
Insurance coverage companies aren’t the one ones benefiting from cloud-native know-how. Shoppers (and that’s actually each one in every of us!) get to reap the advantages, too. From higher customer support, faster claims processing, and the power to get immediate insurance coverage quotes from a number of insurers, all of us see some great benefits of trendy cloud-based software program in our on a regular basis insurance coverage interactions.
Challenges of cloud-native insurance coverage know-how
No innovation is with out its challenges and potential downsides. For cloud-native software program, many of those aren’t inherent flaws within the know-how itself. Relatively, the challenges come largely from organizational and cultural preferences that permeate such a longstanding business.
Legacy system substitute or integration: It may be no small problem for a corporation to revamp the best way it does issues. Transferring from legacy know-how to cloud-native insurance coverage infrastructure might be time-consuming, pricey, and embrace a variety of complications. And, if a corporation doesn’t transfer all of its techniques to cloud-native software program, it’s left with the problem of integrating the brand new ones into the outdated (which weren’t constructed with seamless integration in thoughts).
Adoption and buy-in: Individuals don’t all the time love change, even when the consequence guarantees to be an enormous enchancment. It may be exhausting on a corporation, particularly one within the insurance coverage business that’s been round for over 100 years, to make a large technological leap ahead. If management’s buy-in isn’t the problem, it may well nonetheless be a hurdle to get customers to undertake a brand new manner of doing issues.
Talent gaps and coaching wants: For the most effective adoption charges, and the most effective return on funding, it’s important that insurance coverage companies shifting in direction of cloud-native software program present the assist their customers might want to reap the advantages of the brand new know-how.
Preliminary prices: Regardless that cloud-native software program might be extraordinarily cost-saving in the long term, there’s all the time a worth to buy and implement it. Good insurance coverage companies will weigh the long-term prices and advantages and often see that the preliminary value might be recouped many occasions over. However for some corporations, the value of shifting in direction of a completely cloud-based tech stack simply appears too excessive to beat.
Safety and compliance: You thought this was a profit, proper? It’s, nevertheless it may also be a problem. Not all cloud-native applied sciences are created equal. Some prioritize safety and compliance and a few…not a lot. Fortunately, there’re business requirements that rapidly inform you if a software program firm goes to take safety considerations off your plate, or add to them. Read more about the SOC II and why it’s important.
Regardless of these challenges, the long run is totally going to be extra cloud-native than not. Organizations that make the transfer in direction of a cloud-native tech stack will begin getting the advantages sooner and be extra ready to innovate when the chance arises.
Go cloud-native along with your insurance coverage compliance
Should you’re pondering that these advantages, like scalability, flexibility, safety, and person expertise can be nice additions to your license compliance administration processes, we’ve bought nice information! AgentSync is a cloud-native resolution that makes managing the whole compliance lifecycle for producers, brokers, broker-dealers, and adjusters fast and simple.
Contact us today to learn the way AgentSync may help your group, or read about how we’ve already helped insurance coverage carriers, businesses, and MGAs rework their compliance practices.
