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15th August 2018

Insurance Newslink drops in for a Guidewire update
Interview

Insurance Newslink recently dropped by the Guidewire London Office to meet up with Rene Schoenauer, Product Marketing Manager EMEA.
Guidewire now have more than 350 P&C insurer customers in 32 countries, with 559 core product implementations. Total investment in products is 3,900+ person years, with last year's spend on research and development $130m, accelerating change. Schoenauer emphasized that Guidewire were well spread out across 11 European countries-significantly, the customer base covers the range of insurers from larger companies such as AXA and Zurich to smaller ones, including newer entrants such as FRI-DAY, a digital insurance platform backed by Baloise. Customers are willing to speak frankly about their Guidewire developments and relationship at annual Guidewire Insurance Forums which are reported in press releases.
In terms of product development, Guidewire’s key objectives are to optimise insurers' operations and digital engagement, drive smart decisions, to test and learn, and simplify and de-risk information technology. Its Insurance Platform is unifying core applications, growing data analytics, increasing digitisation, and offering delivery over the Cloud-Schoenauer said the company expects the majority of customers to opt for Cloud delivery by 2023, a trend already being shown in Guidewire’s latest financial statement. He also highlighted the latest version of its software focus on commercial lines, brokers, and GDPR, the new EU legislation on data protection and privacy.
In addition to having a range of implementation partners, including leading consultancies, Guidewire is growing its application range and developing a Marketplace Ecosystem, either through modular services, acquisition, or collaboration with leading edge suppliers such as claims specialists Symbility, Validus-IVC in the UK, and FRISS in Continental Europe. The acquisition of Silicon Valley-based Cyence could be significant-the company applies data science and risk analysis to enable insurers to underwrite the challenging and growing 21st century risks such as cyber-Guidewire was recently named Risk Modeller of the Year at the Reactions London Market Re/Insurance Awards 2018 for its Cyence Risk Analytics product. The company also won two XCelent Awards again in the analyst’s latest EMEA report.
The company continues to sponsor research–two recent examples are a paper on the impact of digitisation on German insurers’ IT departments, and a survey looking at UK Generation Rent’s attitude to insurance.
There is no doubt that Guidewire are not only keeping up with technology trends and internal/external market pressures, but are anticipating the fundamental changes that are, and will continue to impact tomorrow’s property and casualty marketplace worldwide.

Guidewire Trends(364 articles)