To better understand risk and find opportunities, it is essential for insurers to have accurate and up-to-date data across the insurance value chain. Otherwise, decision making can be less effective, and processes can become slow. We sat down with Zulf Raja, Insurance Industry Lead at Dun & Bradstreet, to talk about how the right kind of data can support insurers to meet their key goals.

Why is having the right kind of data relevant for the insurance industry?

Zulf: “Insurers often struggle to procure reliable, accurate and regularly updated external data on which to base their goals, strategies and decisions. The data insurers do hold is often kept in siloes – it typically has gaps and duplications. Yet investment in data – and the digital technologies that enable effective storing and sharing of it – is vital to insurers’ operating and business models. It can help overcome challenges around customer expectations, staying ahead of competition, need for innovation, external disruption and managing risk and compliance obligations. Due to the growing volume and complexity of data, it can be hard to know what is relevant and how to make decisions with it – insurers need a way to ensure accuracy and standardise data across the value chain and within multiple departments.”

How can the right data change the way of doing business in insurance?

Zulf: “There are four important ways data can massively impact the way insurers do business:

• Driving profitable growth – market segmentation and intelligence are vital in identifying key targets, for lead prioritisation, routing and for marketing strategy decisions.
• More accurate risk selection, underwriting and pricing – understanding the holistic risk picture of potential/existing insureds, pre-screening, streamlining quoting and underwriting, supporting investigations, and building models of predictive loss. Bringing in alternative data sources (such as ESG scores, or marine and cargo shipping information) can help insurers to become more accurate in their underwriting and pricing decisions, making it easier to compete.
• Optimising spend and service provider risk management – assessing, monitoring and managing vendor and service provider risk (in the case of technology suppliers this supports DORA regulation requirements). Also consolidating contracts with suppliers to improve spending management.
• Meeting regulatory compliance – risk screening i.e. for sanctions, PEPs, cyber risk, AML/ABAC etc., and enhancing corporate sustainability programs with ESG information.”

Which trends do you see happening regarding data in insurance?

Zulf: “There are a few. Customer expectations are rising on price, offering and there is also more demand for personalisation. Insurers are also having to manage an increasing focus on regulation, as well as global disruptions such as war and climate issues. These initiate a need for quick response, as does increased competition from new start-ups, banks and OEMs. All these require accurate and well-managed data for teams to be effective.

New regulations are also pushing insurers to take a more proactive approach to compliance. The sector is investing heavily in building robust compliance frameworks, including cybersecurity measures and improved data governance practices. With these foundations in place, insurers are turning to automation and data to streamline compliance processes. Automation enables insurers to efficiently flag updates, adjust policies, and reduce the need for manual reviews, which can be time consuming and resource heavy. Lastly, digital transformation is at top-speed, with AI and Machine Learning high on the agenda for many. Insurers need strong foundational data to effectively implement and utilise AI. Insurers also need data-driven risk assessments, allowing them to identify cyber vulnerabilities within businesses to both ensure their resilience and meet regulations such as DORA, as well as understanding the risk insureds might pose. This means personalised policies can be adapted to a company’s specific risk level.”

What is your vision regarding the future?

Zulf: “Recent shifts in the global economy and geopolitical uncertainties have emphasised the fragility of traditional operating models. Insurers relying on outdated systems are increasingly vulnerable to market disruptions, regulatory changes, and evolving consumer expectations. Also, in today’s competitive landscape, insurers who embrace new technologies and leverage the power of data will not only simply survive but also set a precedent for a new era of more customer centric innovation. The ones that don’t will be left behind due to less precise risk- and underwriting decisions and poor customer centricity. Insurers should consider working with a third party to match and enrich their data, which will power their technology investments and allow them to develop the capabilities to extract meaningful insights from them.

Using accurate, real-time global data across the value chain, enables insurers to make smart decisions and drive performance. They will have a strong master data foundation to serve customers, remain compliant with existing and new regulations with lower effort, and better understand the risk, either from an insured or service provider point of view. There has never been a better time to invest in master data, ahead of launching big technology upgrades and trialling AI.”

How can Dun & Bradstreet help insurers with their data decisions?

Zulf: “Dun & Bradstreet combines global data and local expertise to help clients make smarter decisions and power business performance. We have the world’s leading commercial database, with records on over 550 million entities in 220+ countries and territories around the world in our Data Cloud. Our D-U-N-S unique identifier (the D-U-N-S Number) enables the matching and consolidation of data into a single, living source of truth on each business.

In addition to foundational firmographic data, we can provide insights that supports the complete insurance value chain – from market segmentation and intelligence to drive growth, and information to inform risk selection, underwriting and pricing decisions; to key risk indicators to support service provider risk management and compliance processes (including sanctions, cyber risk, AML, trade credit risk, etc).

It has been proven that business firmographic, financial and credit health are predictors of insurance losses, and we have the highest quality data in these areas as well. Clients also purchase hierarchy and linkage information, beneficial ownership data, ESG intelligence, shipping and climate risk insights, cyber risk ratings and more for a full picture of who they are/may soon be doing business with. Clients can access our data and predictive analytics via API, our intelligent web solutions, or batch file. We also partner with key tech players such as Databricks, Snowflake, Salesforce, Google Cloud, Quantexa, Send Technology Solutions, and more.”

Where do you operate?

Zulf: “Across Europe, our key markets are UK&I, Central and Eastern Europe and the Nordics. We also sell to clients in North America and Asia. We operate in the commercial and specialty space; our clients are primarily global insurers as well as brokers. Dun & Bradstreet works with all the top 10 global insurance brokers (by revenue).

Can you explain the key benefits that Dun & Bradstreet clients see?

Zulf: “Clients gain strong, more accurate foundational data to use as a basis for processes and decisions, with everyone singing from the same hymn sheet across departments and different regions. There are less risk write-offs due to more transparency and better risk management. Clients benefit from more efficient processes, including improved operations and decision making (i.e. around target markets, underwriting, risk management and compliance). Finally, clients have access to high quality data, whilst simplifying data processes and reducing human effort to keep customer records up to date.

Dun & Bradstreet also enables digital transformation and AI. By leveraging vast amounts of data from multiple sources, insurers are better positioned to conduct real-time risk analysis for individual and systemic risks, which leads to precise underwriting decisions and reduced exposure to losses in a volatile risk environment. Moreover, data and analytics enable insurers to personalise products and services to meet the evolving needs of customers. By analysing data like customer demographics, behaviour, and preferences, insurers can tailor offerings, pricing, and coverage options according to their business consumers - enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Data is empowering the insurance industry by utilising data-driven decision-making to optimise the entire value chain. In today’s competitive landscape, insurers who embrace these technologies and leverage the power of data will not only simply survive but also set a precedent for a new era of more customer centric innovation.”

Do you have a use case for this?

Zulf: “One particular global insurer springs to mind, for which we are their partner across multiple business lines. They had clear ambitions and objectives for data and analytics and were looking for a partner to help them achieve these. We began by cleansing, matching their customer records across the business to our D-U-N-S number, and enriching those records with additional data points. This allowed them to maintain up-to-date and timely customer records across departments and gain a deeper view of their client base. We then applied some of our sales and marketing intelligence solutions that allowed the client to identify growth opportunities through market penetration, ‘lookalikes’ businesses and white space analysis.”

“Whilst the complexity of data increases, the integrated Dun & Bradstreet Solution across our global applications has allowed our organisation to consolidate our customer data to a single standardised view, giving us a complete view of our customer.” - Generali

“Since this initial project, we have built a successful strategic partnership with this customer, supporting multiple business units with their data goals. Most recently, we have helped their Global Corporate and Commercial (GC&C) team to modernise and automate their client onboarding process, by enabling them to establish beneficial ownership, and automate compliance and sanctions screening on a global scale. This has helped them to reduce the time taken for onboarding, in some cases by days.”

“Our screening solution allows us to have a fully integrated workflow with comprehensive data enrichment, covering everything from sales and underwriting activities to compliance and audit, all without system breaks or email traffic.”

- Generali

Who is Dun & Bradstreet?

Dun & Bradstreet was founded in 1841 by Lewis Tappan, an enterprising businessman who aimed to help American merchants in their decision making. Today, Dun & Bradstreet serves a broad set of clients across multiple industries and geographies, providing their global data and local expertise to help clients make smarter decisions and power business performance. They have a global client base of approximately 135,000, including approximately 90% of the Fortune 500. Dun & Bradstreet partners with key technology players such as Databricks, Snowflake, Google Cloud, AWS, Quantexa, Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, SAS, Send Technology Solutions, and more.

In 1963, the introduction of the Data Universal Numbering System – Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number – to identify businesses numerically for data-processing purposes, helped bring business information into the computer age. This unique business identification system proved so useful that today the Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number has become a standard business identifier for many commercial, educational and government entities around the world. 

In July 2020, Dun & Bradstreet launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO) to accelerate the Company’s growth strategy.

Zulf Raja, Insurance Industry Lead at Dun & Bradstreet

Read more on Dun & Bradstreet's website here