The operating model of most Insurance organizations is a complex maze of processes, IT and governance, implemented in a dominantly manual organization. A state of the art World Class Operating Model is based on a full digital service organization with high skilled experts for product development, marketing, product advice, claims management and customer service.

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DEFINITION OF A WORLD CLASS OPERATING MODEL FOR
INSURANCE
There is no common certified definition of
an operating model for Insurance. An
operating model is a representation of the
reality of the implementation of the
company’s business and IT processes
supporting the business model. A
business model defines how a company
makes money; an operating model
defines how the company is organized to
ensure it actually makes money.
A World Class Operating Model is the best possible Target Operating Model for an organization,
defined based on the external market and internal governance and culture. World Class defines
an excellent organization able to deliver shareholder value, stable high profits and growth with
an agile organization able to adapt quickly to market changes.
A World Class Operating Model supports a company to streamline all improvement efforts to
ensure the promised return on investment and prevent the introduction of new problems due to
incomplete or wrong changes caused by a lack of overview or ability to deliver complex
solutions.
There are many examples of World Class organizations globally with an excellent service and
optimized internal processes and IT; however, in the Insurance industry it is hard to find a World
Class organization. Ask customers, distributors and even internal management and staff of
Insurance companies and the overall perception is quite bad. There are of course examples of
substantial improvements, most of the time covering only parts of the organization.
The objective of a World Class Operating Model is to define an organization able to deliver
excellent service and products with a low cost, reliable, scalable and sustainable Operations
and IT organization, which is fast and flexible in adapting market changes.
Where in most cases the operating model of an Insurance organization is a complex maze of
processes, IT and governance implemented in a dominantly manual organization, a state of the
art World Class Operating Model is based on a full digital service organization with high skilled
experts for product development, marketing, product advice, claims management and customer
service.
A World Class Operating Model for Insurance is based on the following principles:
Availability of real time information
One often heard complaint of customers and distributors is the lack of up-to-date information in
the service processes, especially in case of a claim. Call centers and internal staff simply have
no access to the latest data and have to wait until paper files become available. An important
principle of a World Class Operating Model is that all information is digitized, up-to-date and real

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DEFINITION OF A WORLD CLASS OPERATING MODEL FOR
INSURANCE
time available creating excellent service, fast underwriting & claim processes, and a real time
view on company’s production and productivity.
Fully digitized self-service capabilities
Today, all information should be available real time, anywhere, anytime, on every computer and
mobile device used by customers, distributors, internal management and staff and third party
service providers. It will save tremendous time and money when customers and business
partners have access to all information via internet, on tablets, phones, etc. and are able to get
quotations for new products and renewals, submit customer and products details, policy
endorsements and changes and upload claims information. In the World Class Operating
Model, the digitized self-service capabilities are fully integrated with comprehensive sales
support and customer relationship management systems.
Straight Through Processing
The complex manual processes in Insurance organizations are causing most of the service
problems. Backlogs, lack of overview, re-entering of data, manual mistakes are the cause of
service deterioration and high expense ratios. A World Class Operating Model organizes all
processes in a standard, simple model. This model is fully automated without any manual
interference except for decision making like underwriting and claims assessment. All data will be
entered in one of the systems and will be transferred straight through to other systems where no
re-entering of data is necessary.
Fast time to market
The time to market of Insurance products is long, even small pricing changes will take months to
deploy in most Insurance companies. This is in most cases a result of the complexity of the IT
environment. Even when companies use advanced product development tools, the problem of
changing the policy administration system remains. The World Class Operating Model aims for
a time to market of 1 day to 1 week, depending on the change and including the product
approval governance and IT changes.
State of the art IT architecture and solutions
Starting point of the World Class Operating Model is to automate all sales, customer service,
new business, renewal, expiry, claims, endorsement and policy change processes based on a
robust loosely coupled, flexible IT architecture with best of breed system components integrated
using an Enterprise Service Bus and one central database. The state of the art IT architecture is
scalable to cope with company’s (fast) growth, is flexible, sustainable and prepared for all
market developments in the coming years.
Culture of engagement and continuous improvement
All today’s processes and IT are defined by people and “we won‘t solve today problems with the
same thinking that created them” (Albert Einstein). This means an implementation of a World
Class Operating Model is more than only an IT transformation. As Insurance is a very traditional

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DEFINITION OF A WORLD CLASS OPERATING MODEL FOR
INSURANCE
industry where risk avoidance is the main objective, every transformation change will create
resistance and when not managed well, will destroy the outcome of transformation projects. A
World Class Operating Model implementation includes a culture change towards continuous
improvement, stakeholder and employee engagement and is in most organizations the hardest
nut to crack.
Simple and lean organization and governance
Apart from the technology and culture challenges, organization and governance design are as
important to ensure a successful outcome of a World Class Operating Model transformation.
Insurance organizations have many different representations caused by past and present
management preferences, which are not necessarily the most efficient and effective structures.
Usually these organization structures are causing more complexity, inefficiency and a slow time
to market. The World Class Operating Model includes a straightforward, simple and lean
organization structure and governance delivering optimal customer, partner and employee
satisfaction.
Definition of a World Class Operating Model for Insurance
Singapore, July 19, 2013
Second edition V5
© Paul de Bruijn
www.pauldebruijn.com