This submit is a part of a sequence sponsored by AgentSync.
Having your head “within the clouds” won’t be fascinating, however storing your information “within the cloud” actually has its advantages. As extra folks and corporations transfer to cloud storage for his or her private {and professional} information, the gold normal is cloud-native software program that’s constructed with flexibility and safety in thoughts. Learn on to be taught the fundamentals of cloud-native software program and its rising recognition inside the insurance coverage trade.
What’s cloud-native software program?
iCloud, Google Cloud, Dropbox, simply to call a number of: We’re all conversant in cloud storage in our each day lives, if for no different cause than it’s the place our photographs and music reside so we will 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 really be “cloud-native?” Identical to it sounds, cloud-native refers to a software program utility that was constructed particularly to operate in a cloud (distributed and web-based) atmosphere, slightly than residing on a bodily drive or server.
Versus older purposes that advanced to include cloud elements, cloud-native software program originates in its cloud-based type. For instance, you possibly can’t obtain a model of “QuickBooks On-line” to your pc irrespective of how a lot you wish to, as a result of it solely exists within the cloud. Typically, tech merchandise which might be bought as Software program-as-a-Service (SaaS) – and require an ongoing subscription slightly than a one-time buy – are cloud-native. AgentSync isn’t any exception.
One among cloud-native software program’s defining elements is its capacity to be deployed shortly, 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 features.
Key options of cloud-native software program embrace:
Microservices structure: You’ll be able to consider cloud-native software program as a group of “microservices” or “microapplications.” Google Cloud defines this as “particular person, loosely coupled elements” which means that as an alternative of 1 giant program, the way in which we used to think about a chunk of software program, cloud-native software program is constructed by a variety of individually functioning elements that type 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 features, 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 potential with legacy applied sciences. It’s the distinction between having to take your automotive 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 complete system to carry out upgrades or fixes.
API-first strategy: 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 convey alongside top-of-the-line information safety and compliance practices, energy most cloud-native software program. Huge names like Amazon Internet Providers (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure provide their enterprise clients assurance that the info they host for various cloud-native purposes is secure and safe. For a lot of insurance coverage companies, the peace of thoughts that an organization as strong as Amazon is dealing with their information safety is extra comforting than the concept of being chargeable 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 trade. Although cloud-native insurance coverage software program has been available because the 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 strategy the primary quarter-century mark. Based on a 2022 report by McKinsey & Firm, insurers challenge a 32 % annual development of their use of cloud companies by 2025. With quite a lot of room for development in its general use of cloud companies, the insurance coverage trade can also be close to the highest of the record of industries that may reap the 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 could be discovered as a cloud-native utility. That doesn’t imply most insurance coverage carriers, companies, or MGAs have adopted cloud-native variations of their day-to-day software program, however the selection to take action exists over a big portion of the integral insurance coverage features.
Among the commonest examples of cloud-native software program in insurance coverage embrace:
- Company administration methods
- Claims administration methods
- Coverage administration methods
- Comparative score software program
- Buyer relationship administration methods
- Electronic mail advertising platforms
- Insurance coverage compliance administration methods
Advantages of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and companies
One of the vital important advantages of cloud-native insurance coverage expertise is its capacity to combine with different purposes by way of 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 embrace:
Scalability: Cloud-native software program can assist 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 increase and contract shortly, 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 person inviting somebody to affix an current platform.
Or, alternatively, deactivating a person instantaneously, when wanted. That is significantly relevant within the insurance coverage trade, the place corporations have seasonal fluctuations and must shortly onboard new producers or adjusters to satisfy their calls for.
Flexibility: One of many greatest benefits of cloud-native software program for insurance coverage professionals and their employers is the flexibleness it offers folks to work from anyplace. An insurance coverage agent or claims adjuster can theoretically log into the system they use to carry out their work from anyplace with web entry. The identical can’t be stated for legacy methods that require a person to be related to a hard-wired community or pull information from an on-premises server.
Enhanced buyer expertise: This profit bleeds over into one for insurance coverage shoppers too, nevertheless it most positively advantages insurance coverage companies and professionals once they can present a greater buyer expertise. Only one manner cloud-native software program can do that is by being extra dependable for folks whose job it’s to interface with clients. An insurance coverage customer support consultant or licensed agent received’t lose entry to a buyer’s coverage info 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 significant snafu. Strive that with a legacy system that depends completely on the facility and web working in a single particular constructing always.
Decreased prices and useful resource use: What feels like a greater use of an insurance coverage group’s cash: paying for a number of workers members to keep up legacy expertise and on-prem servers, or paying the identical variety of staff to promote insurance policies and repair clients? The reply must be apparent. Shifting to cloud-native insurtech can unencumber workers’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 keep the established order.
Innovation and aggressive benefit: With most new tech improvements occurring on this planet of cloud-native software program, insurance coverage organizations which might be geared up to embrace cloud expertise shall be greatest positioned to reap the benefits of new developments. Innovation can snowball as an organization that’s already applied a main cloud-based expertise can extra simply undertake others as they develop into out there (to not point out, they’ll combine the brand new ones into the present ones for even better effectivity beneficial properties). Past the power to leverage new expertise because it comes out, these companies will 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 shoppers
Insurance coverage companies aren’t the one ones benefiting from cloud-native expertise. Shoppers (and that’s actually each considered one of us!) get to reap the advantages, too. From higher customer support, faster claims processing, and the power to get instantaneous insurance coverage quotes from a number of insurers, all of us see some great benefits of trendy 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. Fairly, the challenges come largely from organizational and cultural preferences that permeate such a longstanding trade.
Legacy system alternative or integration: It may be no small problem for a company to revamp the way in which it does issues. Shifting from legacy expertise to cloud-native insurance coverage infrastructure could be time-consuming, pricey, and embrace quite a lot of complications. And, if a company 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 previous (which weren’t constructed with seamless integration in thoughts).
Adoption and buy-in: Folks don’t at all times love change, even when the end result guarantees to be an enormous enchancment. It may be arduous on a company, particularly one within the insurance coverage trade that’s been round for over 100 years, to make a large technological leap ahead. If management’s buy-in isn’t the problem, it will probably nonetheless be a hurdle to get customers to undertake a brand new manner of doing issues.
Talent gaps and coaching wants: For the perfect adoption charges, and the perfect return on funding, it’s very important that insurance coverage companies shifting in the direction of cloud-native software program present the assist their customers might want to reap the advantages of the brand new expertise.
Preliminary prices: Although cloud-native software program could be extraordinarily cost-saving in the long term, there’s at all times a worth to buy and implement it. Good insurance coverage companies will weigh the long-term prices and advantages and often see that the preliminary value shall be recouped many instances over. However for some corporations, the value of shifting in the direction of a totally cloud-based tech stack simply appears too excessive to beat.
Safety and compliance: You thought this was a profit, proper? It’s, nevertheless it may also 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 trade requirements that shortly inform you if a software program firm goes to take safety considerations off your plate, or add to them. Learn extra concerning the SOC II and why it’s vital.
Regardless of these challenges, the long run is completely going to be extra cloud-native than not. Organizations that make the transfer in the 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
Should you’re considering that these advantages, like scalability, flexibility, safety, and person expertise could be nice additions to your license compliance administration processes, we’ve bought nice information! AgentSync is a cloud-native resolution that makes managing your entire compliance lifecycle for producers, brokers, broker-dealers, and adjusters fast and simple.
Contact us at this time to find out how AgentSync may also help your group, or examine how we’ve already helped insurance coverage carriers, companies, and MGAs rework their compliance practices.