Insurers Seek Help from Outsourcing Providers to Keep Up with Changing Market

ISG Provider Lens™ report sees customers demanding a seamless digital experience from their insurance carriers

Traditional insurance carriers, facing tough regulatory requirements, a growing flood of data and competition from a new breed of digital-first insurance vendors, want technology service providers to help them address these market challenges, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Insurance BPO Services and TPAs Archetype Report finds insurers across the globe encountering increasingly demanding customers who expect a great experience with every interaction. Insurers, as a result, are turning to technology outsourcing providers to help them better meet their business objectives, increase operational efficiency, and improve the customer experience across all interactions.

“Insurance customers are increasingly tech savvy and comfortable with online purchases and communications with their insurance carriers,” said Paul Schreiner, partner and leader of the ISG Insurance vertical in the Americas. “Customers today expect all interactions with their insurers to be frictionless, efficient and positive.”

Many insurance-focused business process outsourcing (BPO) providers and third-party administrators (TPAs) offer a variety of technologies that can help insurers streamline customer-facing processes and provide better experiences across contact channels, the report says. Many of these providers can digitize processes across the policy lifecycle, including onboarding and claims. This helps traditional insurance carriers keep up with new InsurTech challengers.

Insurance companies also look to BPO providers and TPAs to help them grow market share, boost revenue, and expand their footprints, the report says. Providers can help insurers get products to market quickly, explore new markets and improve customer experience.

In addition, the report says many BPO providers and TPAs are focused on helping insurers protect customer data. Insurers deal with highly sensitive personal data, and a single breach can cause long-lasting damage to a carrier’s brand and bottom line. Many BPO providers and TPAs offer security capabilities that exceed data protection mandates and regulations.

The report also sees insurance carriers embracing robotic process automation, artificial intelligence and the cloud to boost productivity, create process efficiencies and lower costs. The cloud allows insurance carriers to test and implement new business models and technologies.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Insurance BPO Services and TPAs Archetype Report examines four different types of clients, or archetypes, that are looking for insurance business process outsourcing services. The report evaluates the capabilities of 15 providers to deliver services to the four archetypes:

Transactional Services Buyers: These buyers represent conventional outsourcing customers that are looking for specific point solutions. They typically outsource non-critical insurance transactions and parts of insurance processes and aim to reduce the cost of transaction processing by leveraging offshore labor arbitrage.

Automation-Led Buyers: Buyers in this category are digitally progressive. They are looking to providers to help them further their digital objectives. Automation-led buyers are considering robotic process automation and other automation technologies to improve the accuracy and speed of processes. These buyers will opt for analytics that can boost their automation capabilities, and they will explore new cognitive tools with capabilities beyond RPA.

Transformation-Oriented Buyers: These buyers are looking to embark on or continue their digital transformation journeys. They look to providers to bring digital platforms or business-process-as-a-service offerings to their insurance operations. Buyers in this category turn to outside providers to help them achieve higher efficiencies across their operations and to realize cost savings.

Holistic Solutions Buyers: These buyers are looking for comprehensive, end-to-end insurance services that include even complex functions, typically through a third-party provider. Their chief objectives include achieving better business outcomes with minimal enterprise investment. Some holistic solutions buyers may use different strategies, like offloading closed blocks of business or using an outside provider’s digital platform for future open blocks.

Among the providers ISG evaluated, Cognizant, EXL, Infosys and WNS were named Leaders across all four archetypes. TCS, meanwhile, was named a Leader in three archetypes, and DXC Technology and SE2 were named Leaders in two.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Insurance BPO Services and TPAs Archetype Report is available to subscribers or for immediate, one-time purchase on this webpage.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe, as well as in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., France, the Nordics, Brazil and Australia/New Zealand, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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