Scouting for Growth Oliver Wyman Series: Steve Abel – Unlocking Legacy & Transforming Tech in Insurance
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Steve Abel, Partner at Oliver Wyman. In this episode, they dive into the challenges & solutions related to legacy debt & system modernization for incumbent insurers.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A few decades ago there weren’t the number or complexities of systems in the insurance landscape. Generally, there was 1 or several admin systems which did everything. The cost & complexity of IT was relatively low compared to now. The proliferation of systems that solve business problems, the complexity of those systems has increased exponentially in part because of the sheer number of systems but also because the landscape has evolved to accept that implementing a claims/administration/finance system should take years or months.
- A lot of carriers have made successful bets in the past; they’ve bought a system, customised it & to a large extent, historically, they have fulfilled their promise to the business. Perhaps they were a little expensive or hard to implement, but at the end of the day the stakeholders got what they wanted.
- Take a hard look at your technology. A lot of these programme fail – between 30-60% depending on who you ask. Ask yourself: Is it worth the investment for my business? If you have a generic business maybe the cost of customisation is very low, but if your business customises a lot & when you’re done you have a lot of spreadsheets, maybe that’s not a great idea.
BEST MOMENTS
‘There’s an emerging opportunity for insurance carriers to leverage a new ecosystem of tooling & providers that isn’t as monolithic & doesn’t require so many months & so much costs to implement.’
‘In modern (mostly) cloud-based technology, it’s possible to think of data as an enterprise/ecosystem asset, so you can keep that data in a structure that works for multiple business processes/calculations.’
‘Speed is now more important than ever in thinking about technology in an ecosyetem. It used to be that you could pace your development choices in years, now technology is moving so much faster – years and months instead of decades.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
As a partner at Oliver Wyman, Steven helps clients solve complex problems & lead teams to deliver insights that you can trust. Steve acquired over 25 years of experience in consulting & executive roles, delivering value to organizations via smart technological deployment.
Steve’s specialties include program management, operations, shared services, enabling technologies, business process reengineering, finance leading practices, insurance products & data, actuarial platforms, machine learning, AI, cloud solutions, business & technical architecture.
Steve is passionate about helping clients achieve their strategic goals & optimize their performance, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, & excellence.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.