Best ERM end-to-end solution: Willis Towers Watson, Unify
Risk and actuarial teams have enjoyed considerable investment in recent years, on the back of Solvency II and other initiatives that have promoted better risk management.
While work must continue to improve these functions, there is also continual pressure to control the cost of these overheads.
Meanwhile, there is no let-up in the regulations. Solvency II reporting timelines are shrinking year-by-year and now IFRS 17, the insurance contracts accounting standard, is going to require many insurers to improve the governance around actuarial modelling, and perform even more model runs.
End-to-end ERM solutions have become a way for insurers to deal with these pressures. Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Unify takes a three-pronged approach, first integrating any WTW and third-party software, so that Unify can control it and manage the workflow.
The second aspect is automation to run these integrated solutions while providing monitoring and data-cleaning elements. The third part is governance, which includes security, process review, version control and audit of these systems and processes. Anything handled with Unify can be locked into an environment – whether that be a test environment, or development or production.
WTW cited its work with UK life insurer Chesnara, where it acts as the outsourced actuarial function. In regards to Chesnara's Solvency II reporting, the implementation of Unify led to a significant decrease in the regulatory reporting working day timetable, and a halving in the level of resources required to perform a quarterly valuation.
John Morley, global product leader, business process excellence, in WTW's insurance consulting and technology division, says many other new clients are coming on board, including a large German multinational and a large UK life insurer.
He also reports many smaller firms as clients. While Unify appeals to larger firms because of the sheer scale of the integration needs and their bigger problems with legacy systems, smaller firms and London syndicates can see the cost benefits immediately.