Use Vendor Customer Data to Prescreen Coretech Offerings

It’s hard to find the right coretech solution when every vendor sounds the same.

Coretech Vendor Product Messaging is Strikingly Similar

Coretech Insight reviewed the homepages of over two dozen vendors offering P&C core platforms in mid-May 2024. The majority had very similar messaging about their core solutions. Most could be summarized as follows:

We help insurers transform their operations, grow their business, and improve customer satisfaction.

Our modern, cloud-based core platform includes:

• Core policy, billing, and claims modules with streamlined workflows and automation for end-to-end coverage of the policy lifecycle
• Configurable products for rapid speed to market
• Support for a wide range of lines of business (LOBs)
• Portals and mobile capabilities to enhance the digital experience for agents and policyholders
• Data and analytics for new insights and better decisions
• A partner ecosystem to give insurers easy access to add-on capabilities and emerging technologies

We recognize that vendors may legitimately make similar claims — after all, they are addressing common needs across the industry. However, the lack of clear distinctions is challenging for buyers who are trying to understand differences, sort through options, and find the best candidates for their needs.

A Vendor’s Customers Offer Key Insights

To help buyers differentiate among vendors, Coretech Insight established a solutions directory with a key element that varies from vendor to vendor, and is a good predictor of future success: the vendor’s publicly announced customers.

Most coretech vendors have team members with decades of industry experience. However, there are many different types of insurers, markets, and LOBs with diverse requirements. There is no substitute for working with customers and supporting them in production.

A vendor cannot credibly claim to fully support a certain type of insurer until they have completed several successful implementations. A vendor who is highly experienced in supporting a certain type of insurer will be more likely to repeat their success. A vendor who has limited or no experience with certain insurers will be learning and discovering as they go – increasing overall risk and likelihood of delays.

How to Use Customer Data in the Coretech Insight Solution Directory

The Coretech Insight Solutions Directory provides a list of vendors and core platforms in sortable tables. For each vendor/platform, the total number of publicly announced customers is listed, along with the three most recent example customers and (if available) the year each mention was published.

To use the directory as a “customer experience” filter, the buyer should ask three questions about any vendor they are considering:

1. NUMBER – Has the vendor worked with a sufficient number of customers? A vendor will need to successfully complete several implementations with a given type of insurer — a good rule of thumb would be at least three or four — before they will have established standard processes and be in a position to consistently repeat their success.
2. TYPE – Are the vendor’s customers similar to my organization? It’s not enough to be successful with a number of customers, these must be customers similar to your organization. It can be difficult for vendors to support new types of customers. For example, vendors successful in commercial lines may have problems with personal lines, and vice versa. Many vendors that support personal and commercial lines have difficulty supporting workers’ compensation. Vendors also may be challenged to support insurers of different sizes. A vendor experienced with small insurers may not be able to scale up to larger insurers, and a vendor adept with larger insurers may not be able to scale down. It’s key that a vendor has sufficient experience with other insurers of similar size and with similar LOBs.
3. DATE – Is published information on customers recent, or is it dated? Coretech vendors should publish updates on their customers (ideally press releases on new system selections or go-lives) at least once per year. Market leaders often publish updates every quarter. When a vendor is not publishing updates, it can be a sign of problems with marketing and sales execution that may negatively impact its viability.

Vendors with few publicly announced customers, customers very different than the buyer’s organization, or vendors that have not published new information on customers in recent years are less likely to be strong candidates.

Example

Imagine you represent a multi-line P&C insurer with about $600M DWP with a mix of personal and commercial LOBs. You’re beginning to investigate new core platforms and three vendors have caught your attention. They all have similar messaging that seems to match your organization’s needs. In reviewing their customer information in the Solutions Directory, you learn the following details shown in Table 1 below.

Vendor A has a healthy number of customers and has recently published information on them. However, you see its customers are mutual insurers that are much smaller than your company. The vendor may have trouble scaling to support your needs – not a great fit.

Vendor B has a small number of customers that are government entities, such as state and county governments. It shows no experience supporting larger, multi-line insurers like your organization. The lack of recently published customers may be a sign its sales are faltering and it is not keeping up with its peers. It is also not a good fit.

Vendor C has experience with two dozen insurers that have been publicly announced. When you review its customers, you see they are multi-line insurers similar to your organization. Vendor C consistently publishes updates on new and existing customers, which suggests successful sales execution.

Of these three, Vendor C is the strongest candidate in terms of customer experience, and a potential match for your needs.

Applying this customer experience filter with Number, Type, and Date questions is only one of many measures for comparison, but it’s valuable for differentiating among core platform vendors – especially in early, exploratory stages.

View the solutions directory at this link: Coretech Insight Solutions Directory

Additional Resources

See “Early Indicators 2024 Q1 — Public Coretech Deals Set New Quarterly Low” for more information on vendor market activity and deal volumes, including publicly announced deal counts and DWP ranges of new customers for individual vendors.

For additional information on evaluation criteria for vendor selection, see “Five Eval Criteria to Jumpstart Your P&C Coretech Shortlist.”

This article first appeared on the Coretech Insight blog at: https://www.coretechinsight.com/blog/customerdatatoprescreen

Jeff Haner co-founded Coretech Insight, an independent advisory firm, in 2022.

Coretech Insight provides research, frameworks, and insights focused on matching P&C insurers with ideal coretech providers so that, together, they can be wildly successful.

Jeff has served in senior IT, advisory, and marketing roles with Deloitte, Oliver Wyman, NJM Insurance Group, Gartner, and BriteCore. While with Gartner he authored the Magic Quadrant for P&C Core Platforms. Jeff’s experience as a coretech customer, analyst, and vendor provides a unique perspective that cuts through the noise and finds ideal matches between insurers and coretech solution providers.

Contact Jeff at [email protected]