If you’re in the complex and highly regulated world of specialty insurance, this won’t be a surprising statement:
Staying compliant is essential, but it’s also increasingly complex, and the truth is that there’s a big issue with compliance in the speciality insurance world
The challenges come from several angles: keeping up with regulatory changes, maintaining risk and compliance controls, demonstrating data governance, and meeting increasingly rigorous audit standards.
But unfortunately, many insurers and brokers are simply not equipped with the tools they need to achieve all this.
For many, Microsoft SharePoint is part of the solution. While SharePoint has plenty of merits, it is not designed for insurance-specific needs and many of the processes involved, including the downloading of specific documents to the desktop which are worryingly uncompliant and inefficient.
Those that don’t use SharePoint are often using other document management systems which are not specifically designed for Specialty Insurance and many of which are legacy platforms no longer being actively developed and too difficult to integrate to.
So, what are the biggest challenges?
1. Records Management
For Specialty Insurance, records management is the backbone of compliance. All insurers must maintain accurate and up-to-date records, not just to satisfy regulatory demands, but to reduce frictional costs and run an efficient and seamless claims process.
Despite its obvious importance, records management is all too often not sufficiently robust, with SharePoint and other options resulting in disorganised records, poor version control, and slow and incomplete retrieval.
Without a platform designed specifically for the needs of the Specialty Insurance industry you are unnecessarily raising both the frequency and impact ratings on your risk register.
2. GDPR Compliance
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is another significant challenge for all insurers and brokers that have a presence in London. GDPR requires strict data security (including sensitive and personal data), clear records of data processing, and the right to erase data upon request.
However, legacy systems, still used by lots of insurers, lack the functionality needed to effectively manage these requirements. This makes it extremely difficult to track who accessed what data and when and how to enforce data retention policies.
Non-compliance to these regulations doesn’t just mean very large fines; it can also severely damage a company’s reputation, especially in a market where trust is everything.
3. Internal & External Audits
Audits are a regular part of life for specialty insurers and brokers, whether they’re conducted internally or by external bodies.
And if you’ve ever been through one, you’ll know that “passing” an audit with flying colours requires you to be totally transparent, with the ability to retrieve specific documents and associated data quickly and accurately – very difficult if you are using a legacy system.
The inability to integrate with newer technologies leads to the formation of data silos, disjointed workflows and no audit trail.
SharePoint will not solve this problem!
The Solution: TIW’s Enterprise Content Management
To tackle these compliance challenges, insurers and brokers need a platform that has been built specifically for their needs.
This is where TIW’s Enterprise Content Management solution delivers.
Unlike generic systems like SharePoint, TIW’s Enterprise Content Management platform, powered by OpenText, is designed specifically for the specialty insurance sector.
It’s an adaptable, integrated solution that offers robust records management, data privacy tools for GDPR compliance, and audit-ready transparency.
By implementing TIW’s Enterprise Content Management platform, you can manage records with ease, ensuring that all documents are stored, retrieved, and updated efficiently. Integration ensures your documents and data stay in sync throughout the business process.
Detailed audit trails ensure that every interaction with sensitive data is tracked. This not only simplifies the audit process but also ensures GDPR compliance by offering features like data encryption, permission settings, and easy document and data retrieval.
Why Should You Choose TIW?
With TIW, you’ll benefit from seamless integration with existing systems, reducing the need to overhaul entire processes or architecture. Our Enterprise Content Management platform brings the flexibility and specificity needed for the industry, allowing insurers and brokers to stay agile while meeting increasingly demanding compliance standards.
If you know that you’re lacking when it comes to compliance, there’s every chance that our Enterprise Content Management platform could be the solution you’ve been looking for.
To learn more about how our solution can keep you on the right side of the regulators, as well as transforming how your organisation stores, accesses and manages your documents, get in touch today via the ‘Contact’ tab on our website or email us at hello@tiwgroup.com
