Insurance coverage programs could be mind-bending.
These of us who work in IT or develop insurance coverage programs have lots in frequent with science fiction writers. We’re at all times trying to envision and achieve what has not but been accomplished. We have a look at programs which might be extremely complicated and we suggest methods to make them easier. As soon as we attain a few of our “unattainable” targets, we attempt for the subsequent step and we push the outer boundaries of expertise to attain what our corporations, shoppers or prospects want.
In the case of APIs, nonetheless, there’s something a bit completely different happening.
Not too long ago, APIs have been touted because the “constructing blocks of future purposes.”[i] Majesco has a front-row seat on this dialog, and we now have first-hand information of how APIs and the longer term match collectively. However the concept APIs are the constructing blocks of future programs can detract from what we are literally discovering: APIs are like including the longer term framework to right now’s programs proper now. When seen correctly, APIs are a bit like touring by way of time and seeing the longer term, with the flexibility to make use of future instruments within the right here and now.
Why ought to insurers need to talk about APIs any greater than they have already got?
Insurers are grappling with their roles. How ought to they increase their roles to satisfy new wants and enhance experiences? Do APIs have a component to play in bettering what insurers already do? The reply, after all, is sure. Majesco’s Strategic Priorities Analysis and our Majesco CloudInsurer® environments have confirmed that APIs are essential to digital enablement. Let’s look carefully at what APIs can do for programs and firms, then let’s think about why insurance coverage ought to prepared the ground in API platform growth and use. First, it would assist to reply, “What do APIs do for organizations?”
APIs are the last word “worth multiplier.”
Something an insurer does now, they could do once more in the same method. In the case of programs, meaning creating practically the identical code, twice, or thrice, or 100 occasions. APIs, nonetheless, enable for reuse. They keep away from the need of rewriting the identical code all through a number of system connectivity pathways.
If you happen to can reuse code by utilizing APIs for connectivity, you aren’t simply saving code, you’re saving time. You’ll be able to enhance the speed with which you’ll implement any new or versioned product or course of. The worth you could have in your preliminary concept and code is captured, harnessed and accessible with ease wherever else. That’s what makes APIs the last word “worth multipliers.”
APIs break down organizational silos.
When you’ve got an efficient API-centric program, you’re naturally (and in an organized method) lowering siloed programs by decomposing them into smaller areas of concern. This can be a idea which has change into standard within the expertise world with the time period, “bounded context.” We set guardrails round context with smaller, extra easily-digestible bits of software. This is much better than having to cope with a monolithic, siloed method, the place every system is its personal behemoth of system complexity.
APIs foster a constant person expertise.
APIs are designed to ship outcomes with buyer expertise in thoughts. There’s a seamlessness to the aim pushed journey from begin to end at a enterprise operate stage, versus on the stage of technical operation. APIs are seamless and usable by design. The way in which APIs are constructed and used inside a platform surroundings gives a constant person expertise. You presently solely get this stage of usability in an API-centric surroundings. For many who work with programs, APIs are a life-saver. Builders presently spend a lot of their time making software program match the expertise that’s wanted. With APIs, nonetheless, the expertise could be exactly what is required the primary time and each time.
Realizing that insurers wanted a method to step right into a cloud surroundings and achieve expertise with API gateways and platforms within the cloud, we designed Majesco CloudInsurer® with useful insurer content material, easy-to-connect knowledge factors, plug-and-play companion applied sciences and pre-built knowledge administration and analytic instruments. All of that is accessible in a safe, Microsoft® Azure-powered surroundings.
APIs are the last word IT do-over.
Right here is the place we start to bend the thoughts. At this time’s API platforms can signify the longer term state of the enterprise — and be used proper now — even when the present state isn’t fairly the place an insurer wants it to be.
Let’s say that your group has decided that it’s time for a system transformation. You might be given two choices on journey to the longer term. One is to uproot the structure, get rid of outdated programs, recreate them after which reinvent a complete new structure. This will likely have to occur.
The opposite possibility is a kind of time warp. It permits your future state to exist in tandem along with your present state. Your group enjoys all the longer term advantages proper now, even when your present state isn’t fairly the place you need it to be.
As a corporation begins utilizing APIs in a platform surroundings, they’re working inside the future state of enterprise IT. Your organization could have dozens of legacy monolithic programs and but now you can cover all these programs beneath a layer of APIs till they’re (themselves) reconstructed as API-centric programs.
That’s the final IT do over. You obtain the longer term advantages, whilst you enhance the current. It’s, by far, the best, quickest method to shift the group to a possible, useful, sustainable mannequin. Higher but, the thought is beneficial for insurers of any measurement/tier.
APIs generally is a quick monitor to a brand new core system technique.
Rebuild. Rehab. Reconstruct. These are frequent phrases that insurers use as they grapple with the truth of transformation. The API method is completely different. It’s extra like realignment, recertification, or revival of the core technique. Whenever you start utilizing APIs to remodel, sure issues change into very obvious within the course of. Waste stands out like neon indicators. Layers hidden over time change into extra clear. Complexity begins to unravel and unfold. APIs let you re-evaluate core methods to give attention to all that improves efficiency and improves the group. APIs assist each builders and enterprise customers to query the validity of system layers that lie beneath the API platform layer.
Insurance coverage: a particular use case for APIs.
If insurers might return in time as an alternative of ahead, there could be three issues that they’d handle. These are insurance-endemic points:
- Excessive knowledge volumes
- Advanced knowledge varieties
- Too many guidelines
The outcomes of those three points we’d name knowledge chaos. It’s multiplied complexity. We see the stresses and strains of this complexity in every single place within the group, from gross sales and advertising by way of claims. As an alternative of going again and attempting to repair these points inside our present system constraints, insurers can now realign their core methods beneath an API platform umbrella that erases the problems as an alternative of attempting to repair them.
Excessive knowledge volumes
If we examine industries, insurance coverage has one of many highest ranges of knowledge quantity, maybe second solely to banking. API cloud platforms are the answer to site visitors and quantity points. For a better elaboration on this, learn our weblog on why APIs are higher dealt with within the cloud.
Advanced knowledge varieties
Some insurance coverage corporations have been round for 100+ years, and most, if not all of them have grown by way of acquisition. From the beginning of knowledge assortment and use, insurers have been housing and coping with heterogeneous knowledge. Their homegrown programs have been increasing with linked knowledge terrariums constructed as one-off originals. The unique knowledge architects understood that there could be progress, however not like this. Silos are the norm. Advanced knowledge is made extra complicated by way of its non-conformity.
APIs have the flexibility to interrupt down these knowledge silos. If APIs did nothing aside from to interrupt down insurance coverage knowledge silos, they’d be price it.
Too many guidelines
Examine insurance coverage with many different industries and you’ve got a wierd uniqueness. Insurance coverage is an trade the place there isn’t a unifying expertise platform. There are a number of platforms which then have a number of software program purposes sitting on them. Every certainly one of these caters to completely different aspects of an insurance coverage worth chain, whether or not it’s claims or coverage administration, or underwriting or distribution administration or brokerage. Insurance coverage is the hub for hybrid platform precedents.
To be able to construct velocity into these processes and programs, guidelines should be launched. We multiply the variety of guidelines by the variety of purposes and programs and we are able to see how system architectures stay so complicated.
As insurers start to make the most of API-centric programs, they will obtain lots of the advantages of a common trade commonplace, together with higher entry to IT expertise, which we’ll talk about in a second.
Too many hurdles
There’s a fourth difficulty, however it’s largely a psychological one. Despite the fact that APIs signify a greater method, they’re nonetheless perceived as being tough to assemble and use. In a current report by Postman, frequent IT constraints rise to the floor, corresponding to lack of time, complexity, lack of expertise, lack of individuals and lack of documentation, despite the fact that these could not really be actual points in any respect. [See Fig. 1]
Insurers can leap these hurdles by using an insurance coverage API platform within the cloud. It reduces time and complexity as a result of it’s pre-constructed for insurance coverage use. Launching APIs takes little or no specialised information and each step is totally documented. It’s additional proof that relating to APIs, perceptions not match actuality. For a quick description of the API launch course of, see our weblog, An Eye on the APIs: A Cloud Platform’s Position in API Documentation, Administration and Governance.
From begin to end, the logic behind API use is that it’s the finest mix of forward-thinking expertise and present IT course correction. Is your group prepared for the form of mind-bending innovation and expertise that may catapult it ahead? Would you prefer to be taught extra about how APIs signify the brand new constructing blocks of insurance coverage programs? Contact us right now to be taught extra about APIs and the Majesco’s Cloud platforms that can carry you into the longer term.
[i] Kerner, Sean Michael, Why APIs are the Basis of Fashionable Software program Improvement, IT Professional At this time, March 29, 2022
