More than half of insurers say failure to agree common standards is holding back automation of new business transactions and claims processing in the commercial lines market, according to a new survey by sales automation solution specialist Focus.
The survey of underwriters and insurers for the commercial lines market, conducted by Focus in April, found that the main obstacle was lack of cross-industry collaboration.
Failure to collaborate was blamed as the key reason for lack of progress by 38% of companies, while 13% blamed lack of common standards for doing business electronically, making a total of more than 50% of respondents blaming failure to get together and agree standards as the main hindrances to progress.
A relatively small group -12% - is having difficulty justifying the cost of investing in new technology.
Despite these concerns 25% of respondents are planning to automate their new business processing within the next two years and a further 25% plan to automate the link to underwriters.
An additional 20% of respondents plan to automate their entire administrative process by April 2004.
Business development director Mark Loosmore commented: "Transacting business electronically offers a massive opportunity for the industry to stop wasting millions of pounds on labour intensive, error-ridden manual processes.
"Both the life and pensions industry in the UK and the property and casualty industry in the US have already recognised this and are implementing common trading standards across their industries. The Commercial lines market could benefit greatly from this wealth of experience."
