Willis Towers Watson's (WTW) Radar Live uses machine learning models to be deployed in minutes, providing significant analytical improvements and more effective pricing for insurers.

While, property and casualty insurers have been existing users, WTW recently had its first life company sign up to the product.

The draw was a wide range of analytics to be deployed in real time at the point of sale – from traditional rating structures to complex pricing algorithms with sophisticated embedded risk models.

The adoption of Radar Live by the insurer reflects the increasing sophistication of the protection market. It also points to a wider market trend as insurers face intense competitive pressure to employ new data sources and advanced analytic techniques in setting rates, while also delivering rates and rules to market quickly and accurately. At the same time, customer and distributors' demand for integrated, online and mobile technologies have grown significantly.

WTW's technology stands out by being scalable to hundreds of millions of quotes per day. Its operational efficiency cuts time and cost of rate implementation, from months to minutes.

"The head of protection pricing at a life insurer said: "The use of Radar Live has allowed us to be far more reactive to the market and gives the pricing team the ability to change prices in a quick, but controlled way and to add in new pricing factors easily, without the need for a large IT project."

Judges praised the real-world examples of the technology's application in the life markets.

"I like that they also included life insurance protection products," said one judge. "This market is underserved and can truly benefit from an improved rating and sales process."