Against the backdrop of London’s bustling insurance market, Socotra introduced its CorePlus™ line of end-to-end insurance IT solutions.
London has been the birthplace of risk and insurance partnerships since the auspicious beginnings of Lloyd’s of London in Lloyd’s Coffee House on a narrow street near the Tower of London. This winter, insurtech leader Socotra held its Connected PlatForum. The afternoon event began with a champagne toast, followed by engaging panel discussions and a demo of the Socotra CorePlus™ line of end-to-end insurance IT solutions. A round of networking over canapés finished the evening’s events before the start of Insurtech Insights Europe the next morning.
Insurtechs, carriers, solution providers, investors, and at least one reporter filled the room. Socotra’s CEO and Founder, Dan Woods, was the first to take the stage. Woods described the rapid connection age where we currently exist, a place where the insurance ecosystem makes it faster and easier to connect than ever before. And this connected ecosystem means carriers can become more agile; growing and scaling to increase their market share.
This rapid connection age is a new reality carriers must contend with to continue to be successful. But how will carriers keep up with quickly changing technology and consumer demands? It’s no longer enough to have a digital presence.
“There are new realities in our world, so how will insurers keep up?” asked Woods at the start of the session. “The problem is that keeping up is hard because modern insurers’ IT needs have far outpaced their abilities.”
Carriers must offer a seamless, integrated, digital experience for their consumers — while still providing fast, easy, intuitive processes. The rapid connection age allows carriers to add new data sources and new functionality to provide new products and features to the end customer. Being able to quickly and confidently add these new components enables carriers to offer better service and expanded products to their customers.
What’s Next for Carriers in The Rapid Connection Age
The insurance industry is ready for change. Consumers and carriers alike are demanding better, faster processes with intuitive designs and workflows. Low-effort, high-reward systems are winning consumers. But traditionally, insurance companies have been built on homegrown or highly customized legacy systems. These systems may have worked in the past, but they have been showing their obsolescence for many years. And the problem is getting worse now at an accelerated rate because there is so much new mainstream technology in play.
The challenge is that legacy systems can’t keep up with changing digital and distribution demands, as end customers demand fast, intuitive, user-friendly products. Carriers began looking for a modern solution. Many worked with a vendor to customize their own software solutions. But highly customized solutions don’t scale and can’t keep up with the needs of modern insurance carriers and their customers.
There are several challenges with highly customized solutions. Whenever the product is upgraded or new connections are added, they need to be customized to work with these customized solutions. The key is not to customize but to standardize so everything connects easily without any need for integration projects.
Socotra solved this challenge with its open API platform, the CorePlus™ line of end-to-end insurance IT solutions powered by the Socotra Connected Core and Socotra App Marketplace. Using an open API system allows information to be shared freely between Socotra and its partners and other vendors.
Socotra CorePlus™ includes both auto and homeowners products seamlessly integrated via the Socotra App Marketplace with other industry-leading insurtech providers. This means customers have access to the best solutions at the touch of a button. Socotra CorePlus™ means insurers can dial into top service providers with no integration costs, downtime, or risk of failure. Carriers don’t need to deploy IT projects or even use developers to access software solutions or make changes quickly. By eliminating this software development time — and cost — Socotra CorePlus™ allows carriers to focus on other priorities.
Building the Future-Proof Insurance Ecosystem
Joining Socotra on stage in London were partner organizations, Mendix, Snapsheet, and Stripe. The panels spoke about the future of insurance and how the insurance ecosystem is evolving. One focus of the speakers was building a future-proof insurance ecosystem — since one thing everyone agrees on is the constant pace of change impacting the industry.
“The problem with traditional technology is its old, monolithic, and can’t move as fast as you’d like,” explained Eric Waldinger, CRO at Snapsheet. “We recognize underwriting might have different needs from claims, for example, but what’s important is the unified experience and having the right technology in front of the right people. Streamlining the claims process, giving power of users to claims professionals, and ensuring the data and technology is streamlined between them — it’s this fundamental shift in carriers and way they manage their business through the power of API.”
Sebastian de Zulueta from Stripe discussed the role of payments in the insurance ecosystem. “The ease of configuration from the API Socotra uses means users can monetize payments, or use payments to take advantage of money flowing through your business.”
Socotra’s modern core platform structure using open APIs is one way to future-proof the ecosystem. Using open APIs grants access to the software to everyone, so it can be used and improved. With a standardized product, continuous updates from the various vendor partners mean everyone is using current, modern software for a seamless digital experience. And bringing the innovations of leading insurtech providers under one core umbrella allows for a future-proofed ecosystem designed to grow, scale, and change with the industry’s needs.
About Socotra
Socotra brings unparalleled speed, flexibility, and choice that gives insurers more control over their businesses. With Socotra’s complete insurance solutions, insurers and MGAs of all sizes can accelerate product development, reduce costs, and improve customer experiences. Socotra provides open APIs, a product-agnostic data model, and out-of-the-box capabilities to manage the entire policy lifecycle, making insurance innovation faster, easier, and more affordable. To learn more, visit socotra.com.
