How a single source of truth can help you share your data more effectively
Subscribe to our Blog
Summary
- As the amount of data continues to grow, how insurance organisations handle this ever-growing stream of information is critical to their success.
- Through creating what we call a unified data model, Insurwave has helped many organisations across commercial lines standardise the way asset and insurance-related information is captured across the business.
- When bringing data sets together, we often refer to the term ‘single source of truth’ (SSOT) to describe the complete nature of the data when compared to the fractured alternative many insurance professionals work with today.
- Using Insurwave’s SaaS platform, data from multiple sources such as different asset schedule formats, statement of values and files can be captured and mapped into one inventory, with all stakeholders sharing a single unified source of information. This can then unlock further insights into total values and value differences to past years.
We live in an increasingly data-dominated world, with the amount of data generated annually continuing to grow year-over-year since 2010. In fact, it is estimated that 90% of the world's data was generated in the last two years alone. As the amount of data continues to grow, how insurance organisations handle this ever-growing stream of information is critical to their success.
Unfortunately, across the industry, a lot of the data absorbed is currently recorded manually in multiple, disparate paper records and spreadsheets. For insurance entities across the value chain to be successful, data must be easily discoverable, available and trusted. The current way of doing things prevents many organisations from achieving this status with their own data, leading to less desirable insurance outcomes.
In this article, we will share our thoughts on how you can connect people, processes and data to create both time and cost savings through a digital, centralised data platform that provides a holistic view across the value chain, helping you make better-informed decisions with a single source of truth.
Establishing a unified data model
Through creating what we call a unified data model, Insurwave has helped many organisations across commercial lines standardise the way asset and insurance-related information is captured across the business.
By establishing a unified model, driving standardisation across your business will result in less manual manipulation of data at renewal, with less human error and more time given back to your risk management team to focus on risk transfer decisions.
Having a single language across your business brings two key benefits: you can use it as a basis to drive more in-depth analysis to help inform your risk transfer strategies and in the event of introducing data enrichments or validation, the process can be done across the organisation on a single unified dataset.
While it may seem like a daunting and difficult task, consider the possibilities this model creates. Having your data organised into a unified model, is increasingly recognised as an important insurers and insurance buyers. In addition to what has already been stated, if creating a model requires too much resources, you can look at alternate smaller steps towards it, such as a data dictionary or an agreed set of mappings, which will enable the consolidation process during renewal season.
What is a single source of truth?
When bringing data sets together, we often refer to the term ‘single source of truth’ (SSOT) to describe the complete nature of the data when compared to the fractured alternative many insurance professionals work with today.
An SSOT is a concept used to ensure that everyone in an organisation bases business decisions on the same data and by maintaining insurance assets and related data in a single place, insurance professionals can reduce their costs and also the need for regular mass consolidation exercises that take their time away from active risk management.
These processes set a standard by facilitating members across the insurance value chain (buyers, brokers and insurers) working together to ensure data from multiple environments can be unified into a single source of truth that can continually scale.
The maintenance of such processes ensures that regardless of origin, new data streams can be integrated and contribute to the growing intelligence of an organisation. If the integrity of this source is sustained, models will draw actionable insight for fast and effective business decisions that will compliment your business strategy.
Data mapping and analytics
Using Insurwave’s SaaS platform, data from multiple sources such as different asset schedule formats, statement of values and files can be captured and mapped into one inventory, with all stakeholders sharing a single unified source of information. This can then unlock further insights into total values and value differences to past years. For example, revealing that vessel values have risen exponentially in the last few years.
Building on this unified position, our AI capabilities can provide real-time insights for every submission, and policies can be delivered to an underwriter minutes after the data has been ingested and cleansed.
As part of our analytics dashboard, we have included the ability to view your data in different dashboards to gain insights into current and past performance of your insurances. This is especially relevant when it comes to renewal in order to properly understand your data and through new insights to be able to negotiate differently.
Data consolidation in action
Using the example of commercial property, many insurance buyers have told us about the challenges they face with consolidating property data from across their business, and a gap in understanding in terms of the data points which really matter to the insurer which will influence the premium and coverages offered.
In a recent Airmic webinar session we hosted, collaboration was cited as a key factor in establishing an effective data sharing strategy. For your insurance data to make a difference to your insurance outcomes it needs to be properly procured and managed and you need to be sure it's accurate. To achieve this level of certainty, you must collaborate internally and externally to be confident that it's complete and accurate. Similarly, to introduce higher standards of data quality, you need to establish a foundation through which to build off of in addition to data quality checks.
For those who may not know where to start, we have created a valuable tool to help you begin future-proofing your renewal process by consolidating your assets into a reusable, up-to-date version of your asset portfolio that can be updated again each year. Using this tool, you can effectively prioritise the collection of your data in an order which will make the biggest impact on your insurance renewal, in terms of pricing and suitable coverage.
Once you input all your relevant data, the document will automatically pull through the information provided into a template on a separate tab which presents the data in a ‘model ready’ format – brokers and insurers can load this data into their models for pricing, with little or no manipulation – reducing the need for back-and-forth requests for additional data, clarifications on the meaning of certain data points, and a reduced data cleansing burden for them.
Establishing a holistic view
Establishing a single source of truth is essential for driving the most value from your data, allowing you to make more informed risk transfer decisions. However, the issue can also be broken down into more easily manageable milestones, like a data dictionary or an agreed set of mappings, which can help begin the journey of connecting people, process and data together to drive better insurance outcomes.