For over a decade, modernization has been a top focus for the P&C industry. Agility, improved operational efficiency and superior customer experience are some of the primary reasons for this shift. Guidewire has been at the forefront of this transformation with its out-of-the-box solutions that are quick to implement and easy to adopt. Replacement of legacy systems is a major undertaking for any business, more so for the P&C sector. There is a huge amount of sensitive data that is handled each day for insurance, and companies considering migration to digital systems may be wary of this change. In this blog, we will discuss these risks and potential business drivers that can help in mitigating them.

Risks to Data Migration

There are many pertinent risks to data migration that insurers need to be aware of. These can result in loss of data, data breaches or errors in migrations which can lead to failures in the migration. Data migration for P&C is a complex task with disparate sources of data, varied products, rating parameters, business clauses etc. Here are some of the major risks to data migration. In addition, insurers must have access to historical data. This enables them to examine claims history and policy services and also make informed underwriting or adjudication decisions.

Business Drivers for Data Migration with Guidewire

Any modernization solution should be delivered on time, be cost-efficient and support high-quality data delivery. For insurers, Guidewire meets all these expectations for successful data migration and modernization initiative. Here are the key business drivers for data migration with Guidewire.

Automated Migration

The data migration process involves numerous manual tasks. These are tedious and time-consuming, needless to say, prone to errors. Automation helps in accelerating these processes and eliminating errors. The result is timely delivery that reduces downtime during the transition and lower risks to data while migrating.

The Guidewire Testing Framework enables faster releases and updates with its open-source tools. These include UI and API testing to ensure a superior user experience in the new system. The framework helps in simplifying end-to-end testing with specified best practices, setting up environments, testing use cases and integration. The Behaviour-Driven Development approach (BDD) adopted by Guidewire helps in describing and verifying expected results from standard specified user behaviour.

Policy Migration Mapping

Compatibility of policies from the legacy system to the new system is one of the most important and time-consuming tasks for insurance data migration. Mapping activities that export data models and extensive testing capabilities are needed to accomplish this task. The Policy Migration Tool in Guidewire facilitates mapping of the database and enables successful withdrawal from legacy systems.

Mapping is also possible with next-gen automation that are more sophisticated than conventional automation engines. These technologies can regenerate code on-demand, are flexible and capable of accommodating changing requirements. Mapping is done throughout the project lifecycle to avoid surprises later in the migration, which can jeopardize the entire project timeline.

Cloud Standards

Security of sensitive data is vital during migration projects. With PHI and PII involved, insurance data is even more critical. Modernization projects usually imply that the data will be hosted on cloud-native platforms. This requires a fast, secure and reliable implementation path.

Guidewire Cloud Standards align with the latest product capabilities and bring quality to implementations. Regular updates and clearly defined standards for all aspects of data migration ensure that security is a top priority for the migration and hosting of data. The standards cover many aspects like testing. Security, integration, coding, best-operating practices and various methodologies that support successful migration.

Conclusion

Data migration of insurance information needs in-depth study and understanding of all possible use cases, historical data and accurate inclusion of policy benefits and clauses. Any errors in migration with respect to these factors or customer data can have grave repercussions like business disruption, dissatisfied customers and even loss of business. With varied information spread across multiple disparate sources, it is essential to accommodate inconsistencies and large volumes of data during migration. The need is to ensure that these complications are not carried forward to the new system which may result in the failure of data migration investment.

Familiarity with the sector and a deep understanding of Guidewire systems can ensure an efficient and superior migration project. At OpenTeQ, we have undertaken several complex and challenging Guidewire migrations for our insurance customers. Our experts deliver high-quality and compliant Guidewire systems to help you in your transformation journey.