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Data – including the big stuff

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‘Big data’ is still a buzzword but if data isn’t on your radar it ought to be. In our digital world, data is key to running a successful business, especially if you deal with individual consumers. Indeed, some firms make data their business, acquiring it, analyzing it, interpreting it and selling it to your business – and maybe helping you apply it to what you do. Twitter’s core activity is generating and selling useful data. It just happens that people use it to communicate using 140 characters or less. Google is an excellent search engine but also it knows a…

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Claims – will Cinderella ever get to the ball?

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A session on claims at the Canadian Reinsurance Conference held in Toronto earlier this year was a neat reminder of the technology gap between underwriting and claims. Increasingly underwriting is underpinned by technology. E-apps and underwriting engines combine a speedy, efficient process with the generation of valuable management information. Claims, on the other hand, still involve a lot of paper and relatively little support by systems. David Nicolai of Fineos reported research showing that most carriers do not have integrated solutions that support the whole of the claim process. What systems there are tend to facilitate only part of the…

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The perils of foreign travel

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Earlier this year a major UK tour operator was ‘forcibly’ repatriating customers who had been enjoying a vacation in Kenya and cancelling all scheduled vacations to the area until 31 October. This was in response to a ‘travel advisory’ from the UK government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office relating to a high threat of terrorist action by the Muslim extremist group Al-Shabaab. There is maybe a question mark over whether the company should have given is customers the option of staying until their original date of return, but one can understand that such terrorism alerts do land a tour operator in…

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