5 Benefits of a Configurable Policy Administration System

A configurable policy administration system allows insurers, managing general agents (MGAs), and brokerages to build programs and products without coding or relying on a vendor. It enables changes to be made efficiently in-house. A configurable platform can be adjusted to fit the individual needs of the organization.  

A lack of configurability usually means changes need to be submitted to a vendor or require coding and developer involvement. This can be a slow, inefficient, and expensive process. In turn, this results in increased costs, missed opportunities, and being slow-to-market. It can also mean a platform is too rigid to be adjusted to the individual needs of the insurer, MGA, or broker at all. 

Here are 5 of the benefits of a configurable policy administration system: 

1. Speed-to-market for products.  
2. Workflow and product changes are faster and easier. 
3. Improve competitiveness in the insurance market.  
4. Experimentation becomes affordable.  
5. Reduce reliance on an external vendor. 

Speed-to-Market for Products 

A configurable policy administration system offers insurers, MGAs and brokerages speed-to-market for their products and/or programs. It empowers them to launch faster for three reasons: 

1. They can build the product or program in-house, reducing errors and back-and-forth.  
2. They don’t have to wait on a vendor or operate on their timeline.  
3. No coding or developers required.  

This configurability also helps keep costs down for product or program launches and allows for easy adjustments once live.  

Speed-to-market can help insurance organizations achieve: 

• Increased market share 
• Higher customer satisfaction 
• Better customer experience 
• Quicker revenue generation 
• Adaptability  

These benefits highlight the importance of speed-to-market in the insurance industry. A configurable policy administration system and product designer helps realize these benefits.  

Workflow & Product Changes Are Faster & Easier 

Making changes to existing products and workflows is something that happens all the time. Yet, for some insurance organisations, changes are a headache: they’re slow, cost money, and require vendor or developer involvement. A configurable policy administration system changes that.  

With no-code configurability, insurers, MGAs, and brokers can make changes to their products or programs and workflows quickly in-house. Rate adjustments, binding suspensions, wording updates, capacity changes and more become easily handled by the internal team.  

The benefits of being able to quickly and easily update workflows and products or programs are many: 

• Agility to respond swiftly to shifts in the market, whether than be consumer behaviour, economic trends, or regulatory changes 
• Improved customer satisfaction and a better customer experience 
• Provide competitive pricing 
• Regulatory compliance is improved or achieved more quickly when there are changes 
• Improved claims response 
• Product differentiation 

By embracing the agility of a configurable insurance platform, insurance organisations can navigate the complexity of the market faster and easier, while simultaneously delivering better value to their customers. 

Improve Competitiveness in the Insurance Market 

Being competitive in the insurance market means that insurers, MGAs, and brokers with programs can better attract and retain customers, increasing market share. A configurable policy administration system supports that by empowering insurance organisations to launch and revise their products or programs easily and quickly. This improves speed-to-market and responsiveness to market changes. New opportunities aren’t missed or delivered late; a team can act quickly on a broker partner request or regulatory change; and a business can be an industry leader rather than a follower. 

Experimentation Becomes Affordable 

Most insurance organisations keep a list of ideas they never got around to trying: a coverage extension, a new class of business, a rate structure that might perform better in one region than another. 

These ideas usually stall for the same reason: testing them costs too much to justify. When an experiment requires a budget line, a business case, and a two-quarter timeline, only the largest, least risky initiatives are worth putting through that process. Everything smaller or riskier stays on the list.  

Configurability lowers that threshold. When an internal team can make the change in days, testing an idea no longer needs a budget. You can open appetite as an experiment and watch the results, easily reverting back if needed. You can add an endorsement before offering it more widely, or run a rate change in a single province, or even trial a new product in a smaller market.  

The bigger shift is in what it costs to be wrong. If an experiment doesn’t perform well or a pilot coverage is unsuccessful, you can quickly and easily revert back to the original or make additional changes to try to improve performance. Teams that know they can undo something cheapy tend to raise more ideas worth testing. This helps with product innovation, differentiation, and can impact customer satisfaction, revenue, and market share. 

Reduce Reliance on External Vendors 

The final benefit of a configurable policy administration system is reduced reliance on external vendors. The configurability allows you to keep work in-house, with the following advantages: 

• Cost efficiency (saving on vendor costs) 
• Reducing errors (things aren’t lost in translation between underwriters and the vendor’s business analysts, project managers, and developers) 
• Improved control over the direction, timeline and quality 
• Enhanced innovation  
• Long-term sustainability for technology and operations  

Vendor support still has its place. A large product build or a stretched internal team are both good reasons to bring your provider in. With a configurable platform, you decide when that happens. Everyday changes can stay with tour team and your vendor’s time goes to the work that genuinely needs it. 

Choosing a Configurable Policy Administration  

Every benefit above comes from the same place – a configurable policy administration system. These advantages matter more over time than most system evaluations account for. Buying decisions tend to focus on what a system can do on day one. Features are visible and easy to compare. What is harder to see is how much effort it takes to change something down the road.  

Modular Solutions was designed for configurability. We wanted our clients to be able to fully use the platform and so they’re able to make changes to their products and programs in-house with ease. We set them up for success with training to do this; we also provide additional product design training for those teams wanting to build their own products from scratch. If you’re interested in seeing configurability in action, contact our team for a demo.