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 and is its ability to consolidate data from many customer touch points, and since it launched its various cloud offerings, the company has garnered business from a variety of vertical markets, insurance being the latest.
Informatica notes the following insurance customers 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 CRM integration, as well as synchronized data between front-office and back-office systems such as AMS Sagitta for agency management, contract and licensing (C&L) systems, and more.
The company says carriers are using cloud-based CRM as their “next generation desktop," providing access to data from C&L 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 via ACORD and other industry standards, organizational access to critical data, and fraud prevention, which is facilitated in real time with aggregated data-required 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.
This column originally appeared on Insurance Networking News.
Pat Speer is editor-in-chief of Insurance Networking News.
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