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Guidewire Software (Foster City, Calif.) announced the new release of the Guidewire Insurance Platform this week at the  IASA Educational Conference and Business Show in San Antonio, Texas. The Guidewire Insurance Platform goes beyond the traditional core system suite offering to include data and analytics, and digital engagement capabilities. The new release features new versions of the vendor’s InsuranceSuite, Digital Portals, DataHub, and InfoCenter offerings.

“This release, an important milestone in our journey, features the simultaneous availability of new versions of our core, data, and digital products delivered as a unified whole,” comments Ali Kheirolomoom, chief product officer, Guidewire Software. “We’ve designed our platform to provide integrated experiences across the insurance lifecycle for specific user personas such as the underwriter, agent, claims adjuster, and IT professional. Additionally, InsuranceSuite 9 has been designed for public cloud deployment by our customers and partners.”

Guidewire describes the new release’s enhancements by its major product categories as follows:

Core Operations:

Guidewire InsuranceSuite, which comprises its PolicyCenter, ClaimCenter, and BillingCenter systems, supports insurers‘ core operations—underwriting, policy administration, billing, and claims management—across all lines of business. InsuranceSuite 9 enhancements include:

• Designed for cloud deployment, providing customers and Guidewire partners with flexible deployment options in private, public, or hybrid cloud environments.
• Visual configuration capabilities so that more system behavior, such as underwriting rules, can be made quickly and easily;
• Tailored user experience for the underwriter with integration across PolicyCenter and Spotlight, a Guidewire-hosted analytics application that the vendor says enables more accurate and consistent property risk assessment;
• Claims straight-through invoice processing, so adjusters can manage by exception and claims vendors receive payments more quickly; and
• User-friendly Account and Policy Summary screens for fast, informed billing service to policyholders, and Equity Warnings to ensure sound business practices.

Data and Analytics:

Guidewire Data and Analytics, comprising the vendor’s DataHub, InfoCenter, and Predictive Analytics products, provides insurers with a property/casualty industry-specific data store, business intelligence warehouse, and cloud predictive analytics products for claims and profitability. DataHub 9 and InfoCenter 9 enhancements include:

• Foundation tooling to automate and expedite delivery of data to DataHub—starting with BillingCenter—speeding business users’ time to analysis while lowering IT’s cost of development, according to the vendor.
• Addition and consolidation of billing data and easy-to-use billing journals for accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash, and general billing transactions;
• Interactive data visualization to help agents understand new business growth requirements relative to customer churn, and embeddable and pre-integrated content with Guidewire Gateway Portal for Agents; and
• New Loss Development App to support actuaries, claims managers, and regulatory reporting with easy data access and ability to pull pre-calculated loss development details for more complex analysis and flexible loss triangles.

Digital Engagement:

Guidewire describes its Digital Portals as providing support for omni-channel engagement across policy, billing, and claims to external stakeholders such as agents, policyholders, and vendors. Digital Portals 5 enhancements include:

• Mobile-first designed consumer quoting experience with very little data entry required;
• More self-serve capability for policyholders with a user experience that better meets the expectations set by other industries, e.g. retail;
• Configurable marketing sidebar in Gateway Portal for Agents allowing insurers to tailor marketing messages to agents – making them easy to find;
• Integration between Gateway Portal for Agents and InfoCenter enabling agents to see their performance analytics directly in the portal, empowering them to assess how they are growing and making money and where they should focus; and
• New wizard flow API in Digital Portals that simplifies the creation of unique user experiences.

“Property/Casualty insurers have faced more change in the last few years than in the previous few decades and the pace of change is set to accelerate,” comments Scott Roza, chief business officer, Guidewire Software. “It’s incumbent upon the Guidewire team to keep evolving our products to ensure our customers can adapt and succeed in this dynamic environment. We’re very thankful for the insight and guidance that our engaged customer community has shared with us.”

Guidewire reports that the new version of its Insurance Platform will be generally available worldwide by June 30th. Guidewire ClaimCenter 9, the company’s claims management product is available globally today.