Few insurers take sufficient measures to ensure that their data can be accurately profiled
UK insurance providers are risking insufficient scrutiny as they process claims from the country's summer floods, data integration firm Informatica has warned.
The huge volume of claims has created unprecedented customer data management demands for the insurance industry.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has stated that insurers are currently under severe time pressure to handle more than 50,000 claims that followed July's extreme flooding in the Midlands, West Country and Yorkshire. The ABI estimates that claims could reach as much as £2.5bn.
While many insurers have undertaken extensive projects to integrate data across disparate IT systems, few take sufficient measures to ensure that their data can be accurately profiled, particularly in cases where customer records date back many years.
Without the capability to profile data accurately and therefore make effective correlations between different types of customer data, insurers risk settling flood claims under pressure without the benefit of full visibility of the accuracy of customer information.
"With the weather becoming ever-more unpredictable, insurers need to be considering how they can avoid finding themselves in this situation again. To this end they need to proactively profile their customer data, which will provide them with the necessary insight to recognise where and how their business is exposed as well as better understand their capital requirement management," said Mark Dunleavy, data quality consultant, Informatica.
