Scalable, Cloud-Native Core: InsuranceNow on Guidewire Cloud Platform

In my last blog post, I wrote about how — as the new product marketer for InsuranceNow — I’ve come to the realization that InsuranceNow may be the most misunderstood and underestimated product in the Guidewire portfolio. I don’t make that assertion lightly. In my previous role, I focused on projects that spanned all of Guidewire’s products, yet I still had an imperfect understanding of everything that makes InsuranceNow such a powerful solution for regional and super-regional insurers.

Let’s break down what I’ve since learned into three parts:

1. All-in-One Core

It all starts with how InsuranceNow was originally developed. Where other core systems often expand their capabilities through merger or acquisition and subsequent integration, InsuranceNow was architected to be an all-in-one solution for Policy, Billing, and Claims from the very beginning. Those three core modules were built on the same technology platform using the same codebase. This means that no post-development code for integrating disparate programs clutters the source code.

Furthermore, the three core modules in InsuranceNow were developed by the same team, using the same design and configuration philosophies. That makes a real difference in terms of the learning curve for team members who work across the three systems or who cross-train for backup purposes or capacity needs.

Does your underwriting team need to jump in to assist customer service and enter new claims during a large regional CAT event? Their familiarity with the Policy module will make navigating the Claims module far easier. It’s like moving from Microsoft Excel to Microsoft PowerPoint — and not at all like moving from Microsoft Excel to another presentation application like Apple’s Keynote.

Finally, all three modules leverage a single database. Adding a policyholder to an auto policy? That same information is instantly available for any claims submitted against that policy. Updating a policyholder’s last name following their wedding? There’s no risk that this change will fail to update in the other modules.

2. Cloud Native

As far back as 2005, the product that would develop into InsuranceNow was available either hosted or on premises, with the majority of customers leveraging the hosted solution. So the product has always been optimized for web-based deployment.

But InsuranceNow was also an early pioneer in cloud deployment, with the first implementation launching on Amazon Web Services in 2016. With cloud deployment, InsuranceNow gained a number of enhanced capabilities:

• Faster speeds

• More rapid deployment

• Easier upgrades with little to no down time

• Enhanced business continuity

• Increased physical and virtual security

• Essentially unlimited scalability

In fact, while InsuranceNow was purpose-built for U.S. regional and super-regional insurers, the product is able to scale to books of business of any size.

3. Guidewire Cloud Platform

Guidewire Cloud Platform (GWCP) became available for new InsuranceNow deployments with the Cortina 2021.1 release and for all customers with the Dobson 2021.2 release. In addition to the cloud capabilities listed above, GWCP delivers proprietary tools that put more power in the hands of our InsuranceNow customers, including:

• Autoscaling based on system load

• Self-healing capabilities

• Advanced monitoring

• Rolling updates

• Batch job isolation

• Infrastructure maintained as code

• Improved OSA vulnerability scanning

In the future, those benefits will also include the GWCP API Gateway, Guidewire Hub for single sign-on, data and analytics services, and self-service capabilities through Guidewire Cloud Console, including:

• Log access

• NPE provisioning

• Secrets management

• Observability dashboards

• IP allow-listing

When you look at the total package — everything our InsuranceNow customers get today and will be getting in the future — it’s easy to see why InsuranceNow is the best value available in insurance core systems. I’ll unpack that more in a future blog post around the synergies that InsuranceNow customers leverage by being part of the Guidewire platform community.

But first, I’ll be talking about how InsuranceNow GO enables insurers to bring products to market in up to half the time. I’ll be back here in a few weeks with my next blog in the series, “Speed of Implementation: InsuranceNow GO and Guidewire Delivery Services,” which will include a big announcement about the newest InsuranceNow GO line of business. Stay tuned!

And, in the meantime, I invite you to learn more about InsuranceNow.