Why sensible insurers are modernizing their mainframe now | Insurance coverage Weblog

In a market that calls on insurers to be agile and digitize at scale, an insurer’s mainframe can both catalyze or inhibit progress. Whereas the mainframe was as soon as a priceless core technological operate, many legacy mainframes lack the agility to satisfy the calls for of buyer expectations and speedy digital progress.

The decision for mainframe modernization

Insurers need to attain a digital end-state and embed the enabling features they should carry out within the cloud utilizing a route that's quicker, higher, and cheaper. Modernizing the mainframe is the final mile in direction of enabling enterprise capabilities, reimagining the enterprise and driving a cloud working mannequin.

If we have a look at the market forces shaping the broader trade, insurers are being known as upon to be extra agile in order to maintain tempo with quickly altering calls for. This is because of a variety of things, from larger inflationary atmosphere bills for insurance coverage operations and growing claims, to the influence of the worldwide pandemic and predicted recession. With a high-interest price atmosphere and future predicted volatility, prices want to return down, and one of many prices that's growing 12 months over 12 months is upkeep of the mainframe.

Zooming in on sectors inside insurance coverage, this want for agility is manifested in numerous methods. Property and Casualty (P&C) insurers not solely should be extra agile, however have to concentrate on advertising factors of differentiation whereas commoditizing non-differentiators. The Life & Annuity (L&A) and Retirement trade will profit from unlocking distribution, a feat which is at the moment not potential as a result of a variety of that logic is embedded within the mainframe. Due to this fact, the main target is on modernizing the mainframe to allow digital channels. Group and Retirement insurers are present process a compressed transformation – which means that the sector requires reimagined operations from the bottom up as a way to enhance buyer relationships and achieve a aggressive benefit – with Group hurting on margins, and Retirement hurting on margins and scale. Lastly, Group and Well being insurers are being challenged to drive down the price foundation, and drive progress, for instance, by including a wellness layer to their providing.

From a value perspective, the case for mainframe modernization is obvious.  The demand positioned on the insurance coverage infrastructure is growing, with enterprise functionality wants driving up Million-Directions-Per-Second (MIPS) utilization and price. A legacy mainframe additionally has an influence on expertise, as devoted workers shall be required to supply upkeep and maintenance – a diminishing skillset as increasingly senior workers retire from the workforce. Down the road, this manifests as a substantial enterprise danger.

Modernizing the mainframe is not only about general agility, however securing a basis for essential technological transformation. In a current report on Transforming Claims and Underwriting with AI, Accenture illustrates with widespread industry research that AI has emerged as the transformative technology and critical differentiator in the insurance industry when applied in tandem with humans. However, AI transformation is not possible if an insurer has not dismantled and updated mainframe platforms first.

Mainframe modernization outcomes

Modernizing the mainframe offers some compelling benefits. By running in a less expensive environment, operating costs are drastically lowered, and the use of a more modern platform dramatically reduces platform resource costs. Together, this can result in a 40 percent reduction in operating expenses. While this savings is significant, it is not the only benefit. Most importantly, mainframe modernization – through agility, flexibility and access to critical mainframe data – has a powerful impact on business value. As a recent Accenture blog, Mainframes: The last frontier of cloud migration emphasizes, clients are in a position to leverage their mainframe information, which might include many years of enterprise transactions, and use that information to feed analytics or machine studying initiatives that may ship aggressive benefit. The weblog publish additionally illustrates the essential position the modernization of the mainframe performs in closing the talents hole – it could counter the issue many firms are going through as their mainframe specialists attain retirement age and can even entice new expertise serious about modernizing core enterprise workloads.

Modernization additionally presents the power to deploy new options, merchandise and capabilities a lot faster and along side interoperable purposes, guarantees as much as 5 occasions deployment speeds. New enterprise capabilities reminiscent of the power to include AI and ML, real-time decision-making and information processing effectivity are additionally unlocked. These advantages might be led to by conservative changes, or an entire system transformation. All of it will depend on the strategic and progress priorities of the insurance coverage enterprise.

New platforms and migration applied sciences enable for compressed transformations

Mainframe modernization just isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. It's pushed by the distinctive market wants of the insurer and the strategic intent of the enterprise. There's a large spectrum of decisions obtainable to modernize at a tempo that's comfy and mandatory for the insurer. In the present day’s mainframe migration know-how helps this, permitting for automated, quick, and low-cost migration to the cloud. This know-how consists of SaaS options, Cloud maturity and advances in migration applied sciences.

By way of approaches, insurers can roll out the next interventions, which all fluctuate in scale and depth:

• Re-platform: Migrating an utility with out altering the programming language to a different platform / Working System
• Re-factor: Harnessing Accenture’s language migration toolkit to remodel from legacy to fashionable programming language code, utilizing (semi) automated tooling to mitigate danger referring to legacy abilities, improve agility and scale back prices
• Change: Figuring out a managed service/utility that may present required performance, together with extracting and migrating information to a brand new system to cut back complexity and prices
• Reimagine: Reimagining the enterprise fully with rewritten and rationalized purposes

How insurance coverage firms can start their mainframe modernization journey

There are nuances to how mainframe modernization is utilized inside insurance coverage. These options differ in depth from enterprise advantages to the know-how used. The applying will depend on whether or not the insurer makes a speciality of life and annuities, group and well being, retirement, private traces/small industrial and huge industrial. Nonetheless, there are three key steps that decide the route of each mainframe modernization journey:

1. Defining enterprise priorities
   1. a. What are the very best priorities for the enterprise?
   2. b. How do these align to the important thing issues brought on by operating on the mainframe?

2. Figuring out finances constraints
   1. a. What's the finances obtainable immediately?
   2. b. What's the period obtainable to understand ROI?

3. Figuring out capability for transformation
   1. a. What's the IT workforce’s capability for transformation?
   2. b. Are there assets obtainable?
   3. c. Is there a variety of different change occurring?

Following this course of ends in a singular mainframe modernization plan.

Accenture’s insurance coverage mainframe modernization methodology will make it easier to develop a journey aligned along with your targets. Contact us to get began.

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