This submit 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 individuals and corporations 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 reputation inside 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 each day lives, if for no different motive than it’s the place our photographs and music reside so we are able to 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?” Identical to it sounds, cloud-native refers to a software program software that was constructed particularly to perform in a cloud (distributed and web-based) setting, moderately than residing on a bodily drive or server.
Versus older purposes that developed to include cloud parts, cloud-native software program originates in its cloud-based kind. For instance, you possibly can’t obtain a model of “QuickBooks On-line” to your pc regardless of how a lot you need to, as a result of it solely exists within the cloud. Usually, tech merchandise which are bought as Software program-as-a-Service (SaaS) – and require an ongoing subscription moderately than a one-time buy – are cloud-native. AgentSync isn’t any exception.
One in every of 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 embody:
Microservices structure: You may consider cloud-native software program as a group of “microservices” or “microapplications.” Google Cloud defines this as “particular person, loosely coupled parts” that 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 quite a few individually functioning elements that kind 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 a complete. This is named containerization.
Steady integration: Resulting from 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 method: 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 Internet Companies (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure provide their enterprise prospects assurance that the information they host for various cloud-native purposes is protected and safe. For a lot of insurance coverage companies, the peace of thoughts that an organization as sturdy as Amazon is dealing with their knowledge safety is extra comforting than the concept of being accountable for it in-house.
The rise of cloud-native purposes in insurance coverage
As an increasing number of software program strikes to cloud-based infrastructure, so does the expertise that powers the insurance coverage business. Though cloud-native insurance coverage software program has been available for the reason that early 2000s, insurance coverage companies haven’t all been fast to retire their legacy methods and undertake cloud-native infrastructure.
This appears to be altering, and altering extra quickly, as we method the primary quarter-century mark. In line with a 2022 report by McKinsey & Company, insurers venture a 32 % annual progress of their use of cloud companies by 2025. With quite a lot of room for progress 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 very best financial rewards.
Examples of cloud-native software program in insurance coverage
Almost each, if not each, sort of services or products an insurance coverage enterprise makes use of each 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 commonest examples of cloud-native software program in insurance coverage embody:
- Company administration methods
- Claims administration methods
- Coverage administration methods
- Comparative score software program
- Buyer relationship administration methods
- E-mail advertising platforms
- Insurance coverage compliance administration methods
Advantages of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and companies
Some of the important advantages of cloud-native insurance coverage expertise 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 embody:
Scalability: Cloud-native software program can help one, 100, or 1 million customers (assuming it’s constructed on strong infrastructure). This enables corporations that spend money on cloud-native expertise merchandise to broaden and contract rapidly, with out interruption to their each 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 consumer inviting somebody to affix an current platform.
Or, alternatively, deactivating a consumer instantaneously, when wanted. That is significantly 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 largest benefits of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and their employers is the flexibleness it offers individuals 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 stated for legacy methods that require a consumer to be related 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, but it surely most undoubtedly advantages insurance coverage companies and professionals after they can present a greater buyer expertise. Only one method cloud-native software program can do that is by being extra dependable for individuals 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 data due to a neighborhood energy outage or server crash.
Cloud-native software program is constructed with redundancy in thoughts, and with sources 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.
Lowered prices and useful resource use: What appears like a greater use of an insurance coverage group’s cash: paying for a number of employees members to keep up legacy expertise and on-prem servers, or paying the identical variety of staff to promote insurance policies and repair prospects? The reply needs to be apparent. Transferring to cloud-native insurtech can unencumber employees’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 preserve the established order.
Innovation and aggressive benefit: With most new tech improvements occurring on the earth of cloud-native software program, insurance coverage organizations which are geared up to embrace cloud expertise will likely be finest positioned to reap the benefits of new developments. Innovation can snowball as an organization that’s already carried out a major cloud-based expertise can extra simply undertake others as they develop into accessible (to not point out, they will combine the brand new ones into the present ones for even higher effectivity beneficial properties). Past the flexibility to leverage new expertise 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 expertise. Shoppers (and that’s actually each one among us!) get to reap the advantages, too. From higher customer support, faster claims processing, and the flexibility to get on the spot insurance coverage quotes from a number of insurers, all of us see the benefits of fashionable cloud-based software program in our on a regular basis insurance coverage interactions.
Challenges of cloud-native insurance coverage expertise
No innovation is with out its challenges and potential downsides. For cloud-native software program, many of those aren’t inherent flaws within the expertise itself. Somewhat, 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 expertise to cloud-native insurance coverage infrastructure might be time-consuming, pricey, and embody quite a lot of complications. And, if a corporation doesn’t transfer all of its methods 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: Folks don’t at all times 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 an enormous technological leap ahead. If management’s buy-in isn’t the problem, it could actually nonetheless be a hurdle to get customers to undertake a brand new method of doing issues.
Talent gaps and coaching wants: For the very best adoption charges, and the very best return on funding, it’s very important that insurance coverage companies shifting in direction of cloud-native software program present the help their customers might want to reap the advantages of the brand new expertise.
Preliminary prices: Though cloud-native software program might be extraordinarily cost-saving in the long term, there’s at all times a value to buy and implement it. Sensible insurance coverage companies will weigh the long-term prices and advantages and often see that the preliminary value will likely be recouped many instances 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, but it surely can 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 let you know 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
When you’re pondering that these advantages, like scalability, flexibility, safety, and consumer expertise can be nice additions to your license compliance administration processes, we’ve received nice information! AgentSync is a cloud-native resolution that makes managing your entire compliance lifecycle for producers, brokers, broker-dealers, and adjusters fast and straightforward.
Contact us today to find out how AgentSync will help your group, or read about how we’ve already helped insurance coverage carriers, businesses, and MGAs remodel their compliance practices.
