Article appeared in Insurance CIO Outlook March 2020
Michael Kelly certainly doesn’t shy away from change. In fact, he has courted it quite successfully his entire career. He started FINEOS in 1993 as an IT-services company then transformed it to become a global market leader for core insurance systems within the life, accident and health industry. Kelly is now on a mission to define the life, accident and health platform of the future.
Insurance core systems are ready for a very significant and critical renaissance. Legacy systems that were created 30, 40 and even 50 years ago are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of insurance carriers who must satisfy the growing digital demands of their customers. Traditionally, insurance carriers resorted to disparate and disconnected systems for various aspects of life, accident, and health insurance—from billing and policy administration to claims management and payments. Today, carriers are increasingly challenged to harmonize these complex legacy core systems with the unrelenting pace of technology change. FINEOS has a platform to change this industry narrative.
Because Kelly understands that change is essential, his leadership at FINEOS fosters an essential environment of exploration and calculated risk taking to be a leading voice in defining the insurance platform of the future. Today, Kelly and his team at FINEOS are driving this transformation in the life, accident and health insurance industry. The goal is to enable insurers to move beyond their decades-old mainframes and green screen applications that operate in siloed environments and transform their core insurance systems to one that is cloud supported, digitally enabled and has the flexibility and agility necessary to meet ever-changing and growing business needs.
“To help insurers move with the times, capitalize on the opportunities to work with employers, employees, and individuals who buy insurance, and also support the most stringent security and changing regulatory requirements, FINEOS is successfully transforming those core systems,” begins Kelly, CEO, FINEOS “Attuned to the rapidly evolving business and technology landscapes, FINEOS AdminSuite is the first truly component-based core product suite developed organically and specifically for group, voluntary and individual life, accident, and health insurance carriers. It’s cloud based and purpose built to connect with third-party apps and partners.”
While the fact that FINEOS AdminSuite caters to both the group and individual insurance market is a winning differentiator, the comprehensive core insurance suite also marks its prominence with the scalability, agility, and flexibility it provides to its customers to explore different markets. Kelly views technology as an enabler to transform inefficient and cumbersome legacy systems into digital systems for breaking down organizational silos. With a sharp focus on improving business outcomes and customer care, FINEOS AdminSuite is an ideal replacement for inflexible technologies employed by insurers. With six components—payments, billing, claims, policy administration, absence, and provider management—packed and tightly integrated in a single technology platform, FINEOS AdminSuite seamlessly eliminates the adoption of multiple systems and enables improved operational efficiency, increased effectiveness, and excellent customer care.
FINEOS AdminSuite has a “sweet spot” in the employee benefits market in the US and Canada with its ability to support fully Integrated Disability and Absence Management (IDAM), which is a crucial solution for employee benefits carriers to achieve and maintain a competitive edge. The IDAM solution enables absenteeism adjudication with an easy-to-use absence management solution which records the correct reasons, simplifies the complexity, and automates the processes around both paid and unpaid absences. Moreover, with transactions and data occurring in multiple engagement patterns, based on constantly changing roles and access methods, FINEOS AdminSuite is flexible enough to adapt to those changes.
Besides FINEOS AdminSuite, the FINEOS Platform, powered by AWS, includes FINEOS Engage and FINEOS Insight — designed specifically to enable frictionless engagement and empower users with real-time analytics to influence business decisions and drive better outcomes. The company’s modern digital core system has a set of APIs that allow digital engagement with third parties platforms and integrates with the other parts of the value chain. FINEOS APIs go beyond the nominal core insurance platform by providing digital services to which the insurer’s own B2B ecosystem can be integrated. “To deliver frictionless service to both consumers and brokers, FINEOS APIs provide the flexibility and agility and allow us to connect and work with third parties, bringing innovative technologies to this space,” adds Kelly. Within the FINEOS Platform, the FINEOS Insight capabilities provision a common and customer-centric data model for insurers. This model enables them to capture and analyze data from multiple channels within and outside of their ecosystem and across all insurance functions. Furthermore, the FINEOS Insight enables insurers to embed predictive insights in core business processes through its analytics and AI-powered Insight. FINEOS AdminSuite, FINEOS Engage, and FINEOS Insight cohesively present an unparalleled mix of capabilities that can be accessed through a single platform, The FINEOS Platform.
The unique FINEOS Platform has remarkable customer support and professional end-to-end services to cover the needs of the carrier in terms of knowledge and daily operations. The company upgrades its software on a regular basis and features new releases frequently. Hence, the FINEOS product suite is always up to date with the latest technology, regulatory and market changes. The company’s product consulting division helps customers derive the best value from the system. These consultants work closely with FINEOS clients to train and educate them in implementing and integrating the product into their business in the best possible manner so they maximize the benefits for users and the whole organization.
With a global clientele, including 7 of 10 tier-1 carriers in North America with valued consulting, technology, and industry partnerships, FINEOS stands at the forefront of the life, accident, and health insurance technology space with its impressive lineup of core products. Moving ahead, FINEOS will continue to foray deeper into the industry and invest in its platform enhancement. The company is ramping up efforts to expand its insurance footprint in the North American market, which comprises nearly 35% percent of the global market. As for the future, the company has plans to unlock opportunities in the Asia Pacific region and Europe. “We want to reach out to all carriers in the life, accident and health market globally, and we are constantly carrying out investigations to make our products and platform better,” concludes Kelly.
