Technology and Insurance Insights

Select the Best Insurance Software Solutions for Your Business

Written by Sebastjan Plavec, Chief Marketing Officer | Jun 26, 2024 11:38:43 AM

The landscape of insurance software solutions can be difficult for business and IT professionals to navigate. Any decision needs to combine the requirements of the business strategy and needs with market trends and specific vendors’ offerings while looking to mitigate potential operational and business risks.

Thankfully, insurance CIOs and other professionals can turn to analyst reports that provide valuable insights that help them make informed decisions.

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Navigating the Insurance Software Ecosystem

The insurance software landscape is crowded, with fierce competition among many general and niche players. For instance, Gartner evaluated over 50 core insurance management systems and vendors for in its Magic Quadrant for Non-life Insurance Platforms in 2019 and 2021. Similarly, Celent profiled 35 vendors just for its 2023 Policy Administration Systems: EMEA Life Insurance Edition report.

These reports are invaluable to business and technology decision-makers within insurance organizations, as they offer comprehensive assessments of vendors' capabilities, product features, strengths, weaknesses, and market positions. By leveraging these reports, an insurance business can create a shortlist of top vendors that best align with their needs and objectives.

Leveraging analyst relations for Deeper Insights

However, these reports represent only a part of the story. Insurance companies can also enter consulting agreements with analyst firms to access comprehensive market studies, research tools, and one-on-one calls with experts. These experts provide tailored guidance and technology insights, offering a deeper understanding of the market landscape.

This personalized advice is crucial when mapping your specific needs to the capabilities of available insurance solutions. By leveraging these resources, insurance companies can make well-informed decisions that drive technological advancement and competitive advantage.

Decisions related to core insurance solution migrations are business critical. Such decisions require additional assurance, which can be provided through analyst relations and reports.

Should You Always Bet on the Leader in Insurance Software Solutions?

No. These reports need to be approached thoughtfully. Even analysts themselves usually warn that simply selecting a “leader” in a category may not deliver the best results. Fit with company needs, innovation capability, cost, vendor relationships, and support should all play a role in the final decision that should weigh all of these factors carefully.

There’s also the issue of analysts emphasizing different aspects when preparing their reports. For example, Gartner always focuses on use cases and rates vendors' ability to execute on critical capabilities, such as new product development, bill-to-pay cycle, or claims submission and processing.

Understanding Analyst Report Nuances

Understanding these nuances helps you read analyst reports in light of your needs so you can identify the features and capabilities necessary to achieve your broader strategic goals such as improving operations and speed to market, reducing operational cost, improving the customer experience, optimizing business processes, and more. 

Adacta has been featured in numerous analyst reports, and we have prepared a brief explainer on relevant reports, analyst firms, and their methodologies for selecting the top core insurance software solutions vendors.

The Gold Standard: Gartner's Reputation in Technology Analysis

When it comes to innovative technology, Gartner has long been considered as the gold standard among analyst firms. They have a strong reputation as a credible source of comprehensive coverage and breadth of reporting.

From 2019 to 2022, Adacta steadily improved its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. This graphical representation categorizes vendors into leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute. Monitoring a vendor's movement within the quadrant over time can provide valuable insights. For example, Adacta's steady advancement in the Magic Quadrant reflects its successful delivery on its development roadmap.

Transition to Market Guides: A Detailed Market Overview

In 2022, Gartner transitioned to Market Guides for insurance core platforms. This move reflects the company’s opinion that the market has matured enough to warrant a more detailed overview of the entire market, which includes market trends in addition to vendors. Representative vendors are selected based on their credibility and size, meaning they need to demonstrate their ability to execute.

When it comes to AdInsure, Gartner’s report highlights the ease of configuration with AdInsure Studio, scalability and an attractive set of out-of-the-box capabilities that accelerates deployment. When it comes to AdInsure, Gartner’s report highlights the ease of configuration with AdInsure Studio, scalability, and an attractive set of out-of-the-box capabilities that accelerate deployment.  

Celent's Comprehensive Evaluation Methodology

Celent is a key player in the insurance industry, known for its thorough reports. The company uses the ABC vendor view to evaluate vendors across three categories: Advanced Technology, Breadth of Functionality, and Customer Base and Support. 

Celent focuses on companies that have active customers, have gained new customers over a previous period, and have customers willing to participate and provide feedback. This approach ensures that all reports combine product demonstrations with real customer feedback for a well-rounded evaluation.

Adacta’s Recognition in Celent’s 2023 Reports

In its report Policy Administration Systems: 2023 EMEA Life Insurance Edition, Celent awarded Adacta its biennial XCelent Award in the category of Advanced Technology for the second time. The award is given based on sophistication and breadth of technology, positioning Adacta as a top insurance solution vendor.

In its reasoning, Celent emphasized that AdInsure prioritizes ease of configuration through AdInsure Studio and Excel while earning great customer feedback.

Celent also included Adacta in its 2023 EMEA and LATAM Property Casualty claims management reports, ranking it among the leading choices based on client praise and advanced user experience.  

The ISG Approach to Assessing core system providers

ISG (Information Services Group) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm specializing in digital transformation, sourcing advisory, and managed services.

The 2023 ISG Provider Lens report evaluated 29 European insurance platform solution providers for Life and retirement and Property and casualty insurance carriers. Vendors are divided into Product Challengers, Contenders, Market Challengers, and Leaders. The Leader tag is reserved for companies with a comprehensive product and service offering, strong market presence, and established competitive position.

Adacta's Standout Performance in ISG's 2023 Evaluations

Adacta has been identified as a leader in both the Life & Retirement and Property & Casualty categories, along with only two other companies. In the Life and Retirement Insurance Platform report, Adacta was praised for delivering a cloud-ready platform that is standardized yet adaptable, allowing for quick implementation of changes.

In the Property and Casualty Insurance Platform Solutions report, Adacta was recognized as a leader for its digital-first user experience that enhances productivity across all P&C teams. AdInsure Studio was highlighted for its ability to enable insurers to create, test, and launch new products and customized portals for their teams, solidifying Adacta’s position as a top insurance software solutions provider.

Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Evaluation

Everest Group is a renowned global consulting and research firm specializing in advising organizations on digital transformation, sourcing strategy, and outsourcing services. Their PEAK Matrix is a proprietary framework used to assess the relative market success and overall capability of tech and tech service providers based on performance, experiences, ability, and knowledge.

Adacta's Recognition in Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Evaluation

In their 2023 PEAK Matrix of low-code technology providers, Everest Group recognized Adacta as a Major Contender among 21 insurance industry providers. Adacta was the only Continental European company featured in this prestigious report. The PEAK Matrix highlights best-in-class providers, which means insurers should carefully review detailed metric assessments and commentary to determine which vendors best meet their needs.

How to identify the top insurance vendor for your business

This brief overview of selected analyst firms and their reports on insurance suites software clearly demonstrates that no single platform can replace all legacy systems or comprehensively cover all business lines, all business models and the entire insurance distribution lifecycle.

For example, this is reflected in Gartner’s market report, which recognizes that insurance product coverage is no longer a differentiator for life insurance PAS. Instead, insurers should look at additional capabilities, such as analytics, front-end portals, or even chatbots, as well as easy configuration options.

This means that insurance carriers (as well as insurance agencies) need to carefully examine their needs and requirements and then decide on the most appropriate vendor. Even lower-ranking vendors may be a perfect choice for insurers with specific requirements in terms of price, technology stack, or specialized functionality such as digital experiences.

However, these reports offer more than just vendor lists. Gartner's Market Report offers a comprehensive market overview, aiding CIOs in adjusting their strategies to align with trends. Celent utilizes its VendorMatch platform to gather vendor data and analyse it to establish a common denominator.

All of this is very helpful when choosing the top insurance vendor for your company.