Shaping the future of actuarial modelling
Andy MacLennan, vice president of solutions management at FIS®, reveals how next-generation technology is helping insurers to transform actuarial modelling, improve their risk management capabilities and optimise capital efficiency.
How is FIS evolving its technology offering to meet insurers' actuarial modelling and reporting needs?
FIS has a powerful vision for the future of actuarial modelling – to deliver flexible, cost-effective solutions that meet insurers’ evolving needs.
It’s with this objective in mind that we’ve invested heavily in evolving FIS Insurance Risk Suite – Prophet. By incorporating innovative updates and new features into every evolution, we make it easier for actuaries to effectively price and monitor risk and drive stronger returns for insurers.
For example, we’ve recently launched our first product offering on a truly software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. Built on cloud-native technology, FIS Production Manager gives clients a fully elastic “burst” capability for running Insurance Risk Suite.
From this foundation we will keep expanding the solution to offer a complete SaaS-based modelling solution. The next step on the journey, later in 2025, will be to deliver FIS Model Developer (Prophet Professional) as a SaaS solution.
As computer chip technology continues to advance, we are giving clients a broader range of data processing options. We now offer the ability to use graphical processing units (GPUs) for calculations, as well as central processing units (CPUs) with optional advanced vector extensions (AVX).
What role do AI and machine learning play in FIS’ insurance platforms?
FIS’ extensive expertise in technology helps to drive our product roadmap. AI, in particular, gives us a wealth of opportunities to advance product usability, efficiency and cost reduction.
Above all, it’s important we deliver real and usable product enhancements. We are therefore working closely with our clients to identify the most effective ways to use AI and have demonstrated exciting solutions at our user events.
However, in a heavily regulated industry we must adopt AI carefully and in the right places. Watch this space!
What is FIS’ view on the evolving role of insurance CROs and chief actuaries in driving technology adoption?
Insurance CROs will naturally be cautious about introducing AI, with concerns including ethics, the obvious risks of hallucinations, and overreliance on models that users struggle to understand. The CRO’s role is to ensure the insurer adopts new technologies safely, recognises the risks and has plans in place to mitigate them. As a supportive technology partner, FIS offers support and guidance on the adoption of AI for actuarial modelling.
Chief actuaries, meanwhile, are demanding leaders who expect technology to keep pace with actuarial needs. They are excited about AI’s ability to supplement their teams and provide rapid insights into data and results. We agree this is an opportunity that insurers should embrace, as long as they treat it with respect and caution. And we ask the doubters to keep an open mind.
How do FIS’ financial reporting tools help insurers align capital management and financial reporting?
Prophet gives insurers a single actuarial platform to facilitate all the calculations required for financial reporting and capital management.
By using the same modelling tools across both frameworks, firms can significantly reduce the cost and effort involved in aligning and reconciling multiple systems and models. Plus, they can rely on FIS to invest in our solution’s standard code libraries and capabilities so it keeps meeting the needs of all financial reporting and capital frameworks globally.
Is FIS using cloud technology to make its solutions more scalable, secure and efficient for insurance clients?
Absolutely! Our managed cloud service platform for Insurance Risk Suite continues to evolve and offer multiple solutions that ensure cost-effective scalability and usability while helping meet all compliance needs.
Through the platform, we allow clients to choose from a large selection of cloud instance types for ad-hoc modelling jobs. When a job is submitted, we will build the chosen instances on the fly and then destroy them when the job is done. The Linux operating system is also now available for our managed cloud and SaaS clients, alleviating cloud licencing costs.
There’s also a low-cost storage option, which takes advantage of cloud-native object storage capabilities and allows clients to easily and efficiently migrate large amounts of data to cheaper, archival storage.
