Taking the Canadian Insurance Industry Digital

May 6, 2018 / G C Network / Comments Off

Twitter Feed

Strategies And Technologies for Cloud Computing Interoperability (SATCCI)

By G C Network | March 4, 2009

As I alluded to in an earlier post, a major cloud computing interoperability event will be held in conjunction with the Object Management Group (OMG) March Technical Meeting on March…

Government Cloud Computing E-zine Launched

By G C Network | March 3, 2009

Today marks the launch of a new electronic magazine dedicated to addressing cloud computing within the government space. Over the last year during my personal exploration of this marketspace, I’ve…

NCOIC Plenary: Cloud Computing Working Group

By G C Network | March 2, 2009

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the NCOIC Cloud Computing Working Group. Led by Cisco Systems Distinguished Engineer, Mr. Krishna Sankar of Cisco Systems, the meeting purpose…

2nd Government Cloud Computing Survey – A Sneak Peek

By G C Network | February 25, 2009

This month, we’re in the middle of collecting data for our 2nd Government Cloud Computing Survey. to peek your curiosity (an to entice your participation) here is a sneak peek…

Government could save billions with cloud computing

By G C Network | February 23, 2009

In a recent study, published by MeriTalk, Red Hat and DLT Solutions, the Federal government could save $6.6 billion by using cloud computing or software-as-a-service. “Looking at 30 federal agencies,…

Cloud Games at FOSE 2009

By G C Network | February 19, 2009

ONLINE REGISTRATION NOW AVAILABLE Booz Allen Hamilton is launching its Cloud Computing Wargame (CCW)T at FOSE March 10-12, 2009 in Washington, DC. The CCW is designed to simulate the major…

IBM and Amazon

By G C Network | February 16, 2009

According to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) site, you can now use DB2, Informix, WebSphere sMash, WebSphere Portal Server or Lotus Web Content Management on Amazon’s EC2 cloud. “This relationship…

A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing

By G C Network | February 13, 2009

Yesterday, Berkeley released their View of Cloud Computing with a view that cloud computing provides an elasticity of resources, without paying a premium for large scale, that is unprecedented in…

Cloud Economic Models

By G C Network | February 11, 2009

One of the most important drivers of cloud computing in the Federal space is its perceived “compelling” economic value. Some initial insight on the economic argument is now available on…

Cloud Computing In Government: From Google Apps To Nuclear Warfare

By G C Network | February 10, 2009

Today, I want to thank John Foley of InformationWeek for an enjoyable interview and his excellent post, Cloud Computing In Government: From Google Apps To Nuclear Warfare. Our discussion covered…

« Previous
1
…
48
49
50
51
52
…
73
Next »

“Digital disruption isn’t just for hip start-ups. Incumbents can not

only compete but actually lead radical industry change if they pay attention

to the way their business model is shifting and act boldly in response.

–McKinsey & Company

Founded in 1871, Economical Insurance operates within the old and relatively static Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance industry. According to the American Insurance Association (AIA), the modern insurance industry, developed primarily in England after the Great London Fire in 1666. Today, this insurance industry segment protects from risk in two primary areas:

Protection for physical items, such as houses, personal possessions, cars, commercial buildings, and inventory (property); and
Protectionagainst legal liability (casualty).

Property insurance provides for losses related to a policyholder’s person or property while casualty/liability insurance protects a policyholder against the claims of others.

Economical sees itself as the insurance company “For Canadians by Canadians.” They also tout themselves as a company that imagines bigger and better things. Their credo is to focus on the customer first, and this is why Economical is one of this country’s leading and most trusted P&C insurance companies.

With this background and belief, it may come as no surprise that innovative internal thinking led to the conceptualization of a new business model. One targeted to a market segment that was comfortable with advanced technology. They saw these customers as underserved because traditional service channels were not meeting their unique needs. By feeding on a passion and desire to make a difference in everything they do, Economical business and technology teams partnered to build a new channel built entirely on digital processes.

The vision they saw was Sonnet. Launched in 2016 t,his new brand brought an innovative new insurance experience to Canadians who prefer to purchase insurance directly online. Using sophisticated technology and real-time analytics, customers are now able to instantly get customized quotes, purchase a policy, and make account updates online at any time.

The intent was to leverage and aggregate data from multiple sources, apply real-time analytics and provide a unique personalized recommendation based on the customer’s profile. The twin challenges were finding an evolutionary and transformative path that wouldn’t crater the existing business and a savvy business technology partner that wouldn’t waste the company’s time and money. That partner was IBM.

The most critical element in this effort was speed. With time to market being so important, a public cloud-based solution was the answer. The IBM public cloud allowed Economical to deploy quickly, take advantage of automation to reduced errors and enabled business flexibility.

Another key component of this partnership was software development that used the KANBAN Agile Methodology. Kanban is based on three principles:

Visualize what you do today (workflow) to see all development items within context.
Limit the amount of work in progress (WIP) to balance the flow-based approach and prevent team over commitment.
Enhance flow that uses a priority process to pull in development backlog in as soon as a previous task is completed.

When compared to the well know SCRUM model, using KANBAN promoted continuous collaboration and encouraged active, ongoing learning and improvement by defining the best possible team workflow.

Economical pursued a hybrid cloud strategy to leverage the previous enterprise IT service investment. Significant time was therefore spent in the design phase because the right design required decisions on what went in the cloud and what stayed on premise. Those decisions, in turn, drove data flow, security control locations, and any required infrastructure resiliency improvements. The hybrid strategy also brought with it a need to integrate with legacy systems. IBM was able to meet this and associated requirements to partner with other members of Economical’s business ecosystem.

In the end, the key to an on-time launch of Sonnet was primarily teamwork and a real partnership. Sonnet thoroughly disrupted the P&C Insurance market in Canada. It successfully challenged the status quo and demonstrated that digital transformation was possible with the right technology partner. This success has spotlighted Economical as an industry leader and business innovator. Customer reaction has been extremely positive, and the business has been scaling with a healthy and steady growth trajectory.

One of the many lessons learned by Economical during this process was that disruption is not a one-time event. Organizations must continue to re-invent themselves or competition will disrupt you. This new internal operating model has led to new product suites, new offerings, simplified pricing and new internal workflows. The service offerings will be built on top of the infrastructure put in place for Sonnet and will change the way Economical works with their brokers. Although a bi-modal, two speed IT operations model was initially accepted, this next step will use cloud computing to connect cloud-native components to core legacy assets. This “real IT transformation” will use additional efficiency to fund future transformation initiative through a long-term partnership with IBM.