Data collection and storage: A comprehensive guide

From six to three months prior to insurance policy renewal, or when looking to take out insurance with a broker for the first time, a large amount of information is required from the broker relating to the insurance buyer’s business, assets, and claims history. 

Assembling this data is significant for many insurance buyers, who maintain company, asset and insurance-related information across multiple systems. Insurance-buying organisations may also have several business entities subsidiaries in different geographies, which maintain each of these data types in other systems and structures. 

Consequently, consolidating this data into a consistent structure and format to present to insurers via brokers can be a months-long laborious exercise for internal insurance or risk management teams.

In addition, the way this data is requested is often not tailored to the individual client. This lack of specificity can create additional unnecessary work for the insurance buyer whereby they are collating and providing irrelevant information. 

By uploading and managing relevant asset, policy and claims information on a data management platform like Insurwave, you can pull insurance submission information together in a structured and consumable way, ready to share with brokers and insurers.

All data required for submission is held and maintained in one place, meaning no annual consolidation of information from multiple sources, no re-formatting or cleansing exercises, and buyers can be satisfied that all information provided will be relevant. 

For many insurance professionals, a solution that consolidates, aggregates, reconciles, and reports on all your data in a single place, regardless of the asset source, location, or type, has helped them gain unparalleled visibility and support when making important insurance decisions. 

For insurance buyers, SaaS platforms can offer an integrated insurance management experience that allows them to effectively collect, analyse and understand their data, with all the relevant information in a renewal-ready format. 

Collecting different asset schedule formats and files from within the business can be challenging. However, this data can be mapped into one inventory through a digital platform so that important documents, such as the full asset schedule with an up-to-date statement of values, can be found in the same place to help build an accurate information base. And it is only through a foundation of accurate, relevant data that more effective insurance decisions can be made.

How is this achieved? The use of machine learning to help ensure data collection goes from a laborious process to a fast and easy process with a few clicks of a button and low-touch human intervention to ensure minimal errors.

We believe that AI is the future of data ingestion and management in the insurance market, as it addresses the long-known pain points:

• The cost of processing large databases
• Slow data processing and its impact on the ability to quote back to market quickly.
• Poor quality or missing data 

With AI technology, Insurwave is advancing its approach to providing access to up-to-date, uniform data across all parties in the insurance value chain.

Similarly, integrated data management platforms can also improve the process of collecting and understanding the status and progress of claims to know if a claim is approved, payment has been agreed upon, and reserves are managed correctly. This process has traditionally been a complex, time-consuming, and often frustrating experience. For example, if an insurance buyer wants to change broker/insurer, they often need to provide information for five years of historical claims.

However, with the advent of technology, the landscape of claims processing has changed significantly. Technology has revolutionised the insurance industry with artificial intelligence and machine learning, making it faster, more efficient, and more transparent to deal with big data and automate processes.

Insurance contract participants can collate, manage and analyse their data using integrated data management platforms. With all of this data in one place, they can formulate the insurance covers and policies with all the relevant data for a renewal submission, gaining granular insights into the year-on-year view of deductible/excess level and loss ratio and red flags, high reserves or catastrophes.

To realise the industry-wide vision of better-informed insurance decisions, organisations need to establish a robust data collection process. A unified platform like Insurwave takes the administrative burden off of the insurance professionals, consolidating, aggregating, and reconciling all pertinent data necessary to ensure better transfer decisions in the case of insurance buyers and a smoother renewal submission process.

In turn, by harnessing the power of AI and automation, underwriters will gain valuable insights into data quality, year-on-year changes in quality, coverage levels, and contract wordings. These insights will equip underwriters with a competitive edge from the beginning of the quoting process, enabling them to optimise premium and coverage offerings.