“What we saw during the pandemic was the massive digitalization of work and processes. It was something that we were expecting will play out in the next five to ten years like a slow-motion picture, but became a fast forward picture,” said Dr. George Zarkadakis, Digital Lead at Willis Towers Watson, during a recent discussion on the future of data and analytics in insurance. The discussion focused on how insurers are modernizing their systems and investing in data sharing solutions.

According to an MIT Technology Review Insights survey, 66 percent of surveyed companies are willing to share internal data with third parties. Zarkadakis commented that “data is the new oil,” and companies need to find ways to collaborate to improve customer experiences and business models. For example, when insurers are combing claim policies, they can use behavioral data to try to understand and predict employee risk by incorporating data into processes, said Zarkadakis. This can be especially useful in cases where employee errors have a huge impact on the business in a certain industry.

Austin-based Texas Mutual Insurance Company (Texas Mutual) implemented this mindset with data partners to help enable the organization to leverage data as an asset. Texas Mutual is the state’s leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance that serves over 40 percent of the Texas market. The organization is now able to make data-driven decisions to continuously improve claims outcomes and optimize premiums and reserves during a time of rapidly changing factors affecting policyholders. Through a cloud-based analytics platform, Texas Mutual has been able to make data-backed decisions to improve business performance, mitigate risk and accelerate innovation.

As digitization continues, data will be necessary for every decision being made in an organization. With data sharing, decision-makers will be able to have more of a complete picture and more confidence when determining the best resolution. Data and cloud partners are available to help agencies in their mission for smarter, data-backed solutions.

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