(Mike Rosenbaum introducing the Flaine cloud release at Guidewire Connections 2022.)
Guidewire (San Mateo, Calif.) has announced Flaine, the vendor’s latest cloud release, at the Guidewire Connections customer conference in Las Vegas. The vendor launched its first cloud release, Aspen, in June 2020, followed by the alphabetically sequenced, ski-resort referencing releases of Banff, Cortina, Dobson and Elysian. Shortly after his appointment as Guidewire’s CEO, Mike Rosenbaum, a Salesforce alumnus, committed to new cloud releases every six months. A Guidewire statement on Flaine (pronounced as in French “flenn” rather than “flane”) says the new platform, application, and content updates in Flaine increase speed and improve agility for P&C insurers across the complete insurance lifecycle. Flaine, named after the ski resort in Haute Savoie, France, is generally available as of today. Guidewire’s previous 2022 release was Elysian.
Mike Rosenbaum, CEO, Guidewire during keynote address at Connections 2022. (Click to enlarge.)
During his keynote at Connections, Guidewire CEO Mike Rosenbaum spoke of the vendor’s intention to eventually have all customers on the cloud. “We’re super excited about the momentum that we’ve been able to establish with our cloud product releases but there’s two things that I want to make sure very clear,” he said. “Number one is that we see with 100 percent certainty a future in which every single one of our customers is operating on Guidewire cloud. We made a commitment to do this a few years ago to get started; we’re on this journey but I think it is now very, very clear that this affords us a mechanism to deliver so much more value.”
“It is increasingly untenable for us to continue to innovate and invest in the on-prem [on-premise] instances of Guidewire,” Rosenbaum continued. “The cloud is a much more efficient mechanism for us to deliver value to our customers—it’s the future.”
Guidewire describes the release’s updates as including:
- Automated Release Updates make lengthy upgrades a thing of the past.
- Jutro Digital Platform (Jutro), available on an early-access basis, enables customers to quickly design digital experiences that fully integrate with Guidewire InsuranceSuite.
- Community-powered machine learning across the insurance lifecycle drives smarter decision-making.
Flaine’s new features will be the subject of much discussion today at Connections, Guidewire’s customer conference. The vendor reports that its keynote sessions will be livestreamed and available on-demand through its website Guidewire.com.
In Guidewire’s announcement of the latest release, it describes Flaine’s most important characteristics as follows:
…
Platform: Streamline development and operations with Automated Release Updates, Jutro Digital Platform, APD App, and App Events
Flaine makes it easier than ever for insurers to keep their core technology current. Automated Release Updates turn previously lengthy upgrades into fast updates by automating the software update process, enabling accelerated time to value.
Diego Devalle, Chief Product Development Officer, Guidewire, on stage at Connections 2022. (Click to enlarge.)
Jutro, available on an early-access basis, enables insurers to quickly design and deploy digital experiences that fully integrate with InsuranceSuite. Guidewire customers will use Jutro to auto-generate digital experiences using a range of deployment options and templates.
Flaine accelerates insurance product definition and updates with the general availability of the Advanced Product Designer (APD) App, a new cloud-native application for building and managing insurance products. The APD App supports innovation across the complete insurance lifecycle, enabling insurers to respond quickly to market demands.
With Flaine, insurers can more easily integrate to third-party systems using App Events, a key component of the Guidewire cloud integration framework that enables event-driven outbound integrations. This allows insurers to publish core business events to accelerate integration with downstream systems without writing code.
“Speed to market is critical to our customers’ businesses,” comments Diego Devalle, chief product development officer, Guidewire. “With APD and App Events, insurers can launch and update products quickly, and integrate core systems with third-party apps in less time at a lower cost. The speed and agility that Flaine delivers is a massive differentiator for Guidewire customers from an operational and a customer service perspective.”
Applications: Drive efficiency and growth with community-powered machine learning, Submission Intake, and embedded analytics
Flaine introduces community-powered machine learning directly within the insurance lifecycle. Anonymized data contributed on an opt-in basis by Guidewire Cloud customers is coupled with external data, and Guidewire Predict machine learning models are applied to generate predictive scores. These scores are embedded directly into underwriting and claims workflows in InsuranceSuite, enabling smarter decision-making and automation. Transaction data from InsuranceSuite feeds back into Guidewire’s data cooperative, resulting in a continuous cycle of improvement.
Amy Mollin, VP, Product Management, Guidewire.
A new Submission Intake module in PolicyCenter automates the intake of standard U.S. commercial lines ACORD submissions, increasing underwriting efficiency by reducing costly and error-prone manual data entry processes.
Data-driven decision-making improves business efficiency. With new analytics offerings embedded directly within InsuranceNow and InsuranceSuite workflows in Flaine, insurers can:
- Expand the ability to manage global catastrophe claims with historical weather data such as hail, wind, lightning, tornados, wildfires, and floods, surfaced directly in ClaimCenter via Canvas.
- Price risk accurately and retain profitable policyholders to improve loss ratios with the Guidewire Predict out-of-the-box dashboard, now embedded in InsuranceNow.
- Write more profitable business with a new out-of-the-box integration to HazardHub for InsuranceNow that enables more accurate risk assessment.
- Further improve risk assessment with the new HazardHub Enhanced Wildfire Model that provides more accurate wildfire scores to pinpoint localized risk.
“The enhancements we’ve made to applications in Flaine help insurers adapt to rapidly changing risks and customer behaviors across the insurance lifecycle,” comments Amy Mollin, VP, Product Management, Guidewire. “Insurers can now shift from running their system of record to harnessing a system of insight by leveraging analytics within Guidewire applications to make smarter decisions on risk selection, pricing, and claims triage and settlement, while also leveraging the power of the Guidewire ecosystem.”
Content: Accelerate time to market with expanded Guidewire GO packaged content
Flaine helps insurers get to market fast with a new GO Product for InsuranceNow and expanded InsuranceSuite market-specific content for Japan, Australia, and the London Market.
- Launch Commercial Auto line of business in the U.S. market 50 percent faster with a new out-of-the-box GO Product for InsuranceNow.
- Increase efficiency of claims processing and decrease implementation costs for Personal Auto, Accident Health, and Pet lines of business in the Japanese market.
- Reduce costs by leveraging the Australian Business Register (ABN) integration, automating claim limits for Australian Personal Motor, and address integration for ContactManager.
Karen Furtado, Partner, SMA.
- Improve efficiency across the policy lifecycle in the London Market with enhanced visibility and flexibility for underwriting and claims processes.
- Guidewire GO content is available for download from the Guidewire Marketplace.
“Speed to market continues to be a primary concern for insurers, and they’re looking for ways to stay ahead of the competition and provide superior services to their distribution channel partners and policyholders in this uncertain economy,” comments Karen Furtado, partner, Strategy Meets Action (Boston). “I’m encouraged by Guidewire’s continued commitment to helping insurers create, launch, and manage new products, and by the wave of momentum that innovation is making in the industry as insurers increasingly adopt technology as a strategic enabler.”