Best data solution: FIS, Prophet
Better data management has become a preoccupation for insurers in recent years as demand for risk modelling has increased and data governance requirements have been toughened. Meanwhile, regulators and management boards have also upped their requests for information, asking for it faster and in a more understandable format.
For the actuaries fielding these calls, their traditional tools have become a pain to manage.
"There are still a lot of spreadsheets used for data management, but they are not the place to manage data," explains Martin Sarjeant, global solutions leader for insurance at FIS.
FIS' Prophet Data Management Platform sits at the heart of the firm's solution, enabling clients to manage data from a range of sources, feed it through actuarial models and produce well structured, easily understood, flexible data for business intelligence tools and data transfer.
It has two parts: the Insurance Data Repository that controls data content and collation for Prophet and third-party software, and prepares data for use in management information systems; and the Prophet Control Centre, built on the widely used Infinity Process Platform, that wraps a process management environment around Prophet and third-party systems, and orchestrates the passing of data between them.
The obvious benefits are a reduction in the number of mistakes, and the potential to accelerate modelling and reporting timelines.
"With the Prophet Control Centre, insurers are looking at it primarily for better governance and capturing audit information, ensuring that when you're feeding your reporting, it's in a controlled manner," says Sarjeant.
But it can also free up actuaries' time for more value-adding activities and more insightful analysis.
Demand for the Prophet Data Management Platform is primarily coming from existing clients, but the data platform is a key component of the firm's IFRS 17 solution.
"IFRS 17 is pushing insurers into proper data management. They need to improve the governance of assumptions going into actuarial models, results and the whole end-to-end process," Sarjeant says.