The hype around big data is focusing ever more attention on insurers’ data management and analytics capabilities. Analysis of data, creation of predictive models and the ability to take action based on the outcome of those models stand at the core of the industry and will continue to be a source of competitive advantage for insurance companies large and small. Executive SummaryThe property/casualty insurance industry is adapting slowly to an environment of data superabundance and instant access to information, with early adoption of big data initiatives typically limited to the actuarial and finance functions, reports Novarica’s Martina Conlon. Here she discusses lessons to be learned from other industries that have successfully leveraged big data in product design, marketing, distribution and risk assessment.
The growing use of third-party data comes on the heels of the proliferation of data providers in both quantity and quality. A supplement to government, medical and business data, new data gathered from credit scores, consumer databases, social networking analysis, geographic information services and satellite photos offers enriched context for all things insurance.
While this new data is proliferating, internal data is more accessible and moving faster with the wide adoption of service-oriented architectures and open, relational databases. When new data and existing internal data are coupled and deployed on big data technology, information becomes increasingly more accessible, sophisticated and insightful.