Is it time to revamp your software? This guide covers all you need to know.
An insurance adjusting firm’s software is the foundation for back-office processes and the primary point of contact for policyholders. How well the software functions directly impacts service levels and policyholder trust.
Your software should streamline processes, maximize productivity, and drive competitive advantage—not get in the way. That said, it’s easy to let software upgrades take a backseat when you’re busy growing.
Making do with inefficient or outdated software saves you money in the short run but can become a major sticking point down the line. This approach often leads to customer dissatisfaction, compliance violations, data breaches, and recurring technical issues.
But how do you know when it’s time for a refresh?
Read on to learn about common insurance software upgrade triggers and how to achieve a competitive advantage with the right software.
Identifying Insurance Software Upgrade Triggers
Here are four signs you need to update your insurance software:
1. Increasing data volume and complexity
Are you handling more data? It may be time to make the switch to a custom software that supports your expansion.
The data used to run modern insurance adjusting firms is generated, processed, and used by various people in countless different ways and for many reasons. As your business grows, the volume and complexity of data being sourced, processed, and delivered also increase. The magnitude of this data can impact operations by overloading software and systems.
If any of the following sound familiar, it may be time for a change:
- Many cases of lost or misplaced data
- Slow data retrieval and report creation
- Frequent and/or severe data entry errors
- Longer completion times for data-related tasks
- Data inputs lack validation or consistency
These factors signal deteriorating data health, and you may need a software revamp.
An upgrade can help you collect, store, retrieve, and use claims data in a more secure, consistent, and easy-to-understand way across your organization.
2. Growing customer expectations and service requirements
There’s a significant difference between poor and excellent customer service, and insurers who don’t meet expectations usually fall behind the competition.
It’s one thing if employees have to occasionally find workarounds to fill technology gaps in the claims process. It’s another thing entirely when your insurance software frustrates users — grinding the claims workflow to halt.
Your software is the key component of your company. Software that works ensures that your employees can continue to deliver excellent customer experiences and keep your business running smoothly..
If your team continually voices negative feedback about your insurance software, it’s worth looking into an upgrade.
3. Need for enhanced security and compliance measures
Security issues are major insurance software upgrade triggers.
Insurance systems are a prime target for bad actors as they process and store a lot of sensitive customer data. Given enough time, these bad actors will figure out how to compromise your software. The effects of a breach can be deadly, ranging from compliance violations to loss of customer trust.
Ensuring your system is impenetrable by the bad guys needs to be a top concern. With the continually evolving skillsets of nefarious parties, making sure your system is modern and current is imperative. While security patches can act as a safeguard when threats evolve, sometimes a new security architecture is what’s really needed.
An upgrade is necessary in the following situations:
- Your insurance software is several years old
- It doesn’t address known vulnerabilities
- You want to add more features
- The current security architecture doesn’t meet compliance needs
Beyond elevating your cybersecurity posture, an insurance software upgrade can also help you navigate the landscape and rules of new markets.
4. Expansion to new markets
Regulatory concerns, consumer requirements, and additional data volume are among the technical things to consider when entering a new market. Meeting those requirements means aligning expansion strategies with technical demands. Legacy systems present a specific vulnerability to successful expansion. These systems often lack flexibility and processing power and can hurt your bottom line.
For example, many legacy systems lack advanced data analytics features, making it difficult to understand customer preferences, market trends, and emerging risks. Because most legacy systems also lack automation capabilities, you’ll miss out on higher claim processing speed and accuracy.
Enter modern insurance software.
These solutions make navigating new markets easier through data insights. They let you track customer interactions with your services and refine marketing strategies, product offerings, and targeting. They are also customizable and integrate with various systems, making them indispensable in a rapidly evolving landscape.
If you’re entering a new market, it might be time to assess whether you need a software upgrade.
Leveraging growth-driven indicators for decision-making
When considering software upgrades, it’s essential to systematically analyze and interpret insurance software upgrade triggers. Reliable data analysis ensures you make decisions based on facts, not instincts.
- Identify what’s prompting the upgrade. Is it outdated features, functionality issues, security vulnerabilities, customer demand, or something else?
- Prioritize the triggers based on potential impact and alignment with your growth strategy.
- Analyze data from various sources, such as user feedback, application logs, and performance metrics.
- Compare your software’s performance against industry standards. Are you falling behind, or are you ahead of the curve? In what aspects?
- Set clear, shared goals for your business and IT teams. For example, if your business goal is to enter a new market, the IT team must understand specific technological needs, such as compliance requirements. You should also involve them in the initial stages of expansion planning so they can identify and mitigate potential technical challenges early.
Achieving competitive advantage with the right software
Choosing the right insurance software and technology partner can be game-changing. A case in point is the experience of one our nation’s premier insurance services providers.
The end-to-end insurance services provider embarked on an ambitious expansion journey, acquiring multiple companies to support its mission. But growth soon outpaced existing capabilities, making a software upgrade necessary.
The company’s insurance software upgrade triggers included:
- Employees spending too many hours on redundant tasks.
- Difficulty in validating adjusters’s training and skill level and ensuring compliance with company regulations.
- A lack of geographic knowledge of its contractor network’s risk level.
With a software upgrade, the insurance services provider avoided double-entry of data and saved countless work hours. Data entered into its custom Resource Management System is now automatically transmitted to XactAnalysis. Similarly, the company can now assign claims to qualified adjusters from a centralized system. This leads to faster claims resolutions—and, by extension, happier customers.
The software upgrade also enables the provider to automate background checks for adjusters and monitor their skills and training progress. It has more control over the hiring process and ensures the company recruits skilled adjusters who comply with their regulations. This translates to higher efficiency and productivity, keeping Alacrity ahead of competitors.
Read the full insurance services provider’s case study.
Don’t get left behind: start your insurance software upgrade with Susco
Your software’s efficiency impacts customer trust and service quality. Knowing when to upgrade is crucial. More importantly, strategically aligning software choices with business objectives—as demonstrated by Alacrity Solutions—gives you the best chance of success.
Stay adaptive and forward-thinking with Susco. Book a free consultation to see if you need a software upgrade.