FARMINGTON, CT--(Marketwire - Aug 10, 2011) - The Innovation Group plc (Innovation Group), a global provider of business process outsourcing (BPO) and software solutions to the insurance, fleet, automotive and property industries, today announced the company has been listed as a sample vendor in Gartner's 2011 Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance published by Kimberly Harris-Ferrante on July 26, 2011.
The 2011 Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance provides insurers a basis for understanding emerging and existing technologies, prioritizing IT investments, and assessing the risks of those technologies. Gartner advises risk-averse companies to monitor technologies that are at the Technology Trigger and at the Peak of Inflated Expectations as noted in the report, and invest cautiously. Also according to the report, innovative property and casualty (P&C) insurers should look to use emerging technologies throughout the Hype Cycle for a first-mover advantage and to differentiate their organizations.
The report also indicates the P&C insurance industry continues to "face increased pressures to evolve as a result of highly-competitive markets, consumerization, shifting consumer behavior, the growing use of electronic channels (including mobile devices), major catastrophic events (such as recent weather-related events throughout the world) and the increased availability of new technologies. As a result, P&C insurers in all lines of business (LOBs) -- personal, commercial and specialty -- are looking to identify new business models and ways to reduce operational costs, increase profits, retain customers, grow their customer base, and ensure customer retention through improved claims and customer service interactions."
Some of the areas this year's Hype Cycle focus on, and in which Innovation Group was listed, include:
- P&C Insurance BPO, a new entry for 2011, is the outsourcing of various industry-specific business processes, such as claims handling or policy servicing, to a third-party specialty firm that supplies the staff to support that process and, in many cases, the systems required for processing. While this is not a new trend, Gartner is seeing growing interest among P&C insurers in most mature markets, such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., other countries throughout Europe and Australia.
- Policy Management Modules are solutions to manage the entire life cycle of an insurance policy, including, but not limited to, quoting/rating, binding, issuance, endorsements, renewals, cancellations, reinstatements, product configuration, workflow management and generation of statistical reporting.
- Claims Analytics is the use of business intelligence (BI), reporting solutions, dashboards, data mining and predictive modeling technologies to manage and analyze claims data, which can result in improved performance. Overall, three processes are supported in claims analytics tools: claims analysis, reporting and predictive modeling.
- Claims Management Solutions combine traditional claims administration with business process management (BPM) to centralize all claims operations into one business platform. This includes the end-to-end claims process, including the first notice of loss (FNOL) entry to claims payment/settlement. This would encompass claims supply chain management, claims workflow, and support of internal and external users (including adjusters and catastrophic response units). Solutions provide best practices, templates and toolsets that enable insurers to quickly define, model, implement and modify processes to meet insurers' particular claims business needs.
- Aerial and Digital Imagery, a new entry for 2011, is about the use of digital images, including those in 3D, to view properties, as well as the software that analyzes the images to estimate size, proximity to risks, and location for physical locations or properties.
"We are very pleased to be noted in this year's P&C Insurance Hype Cycle report," said Andy Roberts, Group CEO, Innovation Group. "We believe inclusion recognizes our Innovation Insurer software as well as our extensive BPO capabilities and operations. The increased emergence of new technologies and delivery options crucially needed by insurers to compete in a new normal are why a combined software and BPO solution are critical today and in the future."
Uniquely, Innovation Insurer, Innovation Group's best-of-breed suite for P&C insurance, can be delivered via on-premise, ASP, BPO or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and integrated with Innovation Group's extensive repair network for auto and property, part of their BPO services, providing a powerful solution in the drive for business transformation. Innovation Group is implementing their software in their BPO operations and is live in France and Spain for over 100 insurers with plans underway for other regions.
About the Hype Cycle:
The Hype Cycle is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and/its affiliates and is reused with permission. Hype Cycles are graphical representations of the relative maturity of technologies, IT methodologies and management disciplines. They are intended solely as a research tool, and not as a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About The Innovation Group plc:
The Innovation Group plc (
Contact Information:
Contact:
Innovation Group
Jennifer Overhulse-King
St. Nick Media Services
+1 859-803-6597