HCL Technologies announced Penstock InsureWrite, an SOA-based policy underwriting system that automates the entire underwriting process, allowing insurance carriers to consolidate the multiple administration platforms used across their entire business. The highly competitive landscape of Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance has made it difficult for carriers to maintain an edge by continuing their core operations -- such as ratings, quoting, underwriting, policy issue and administration -- with legacy system support. Insurance carriers who fail to address their aging policy administration systems are finding it difficult to adapt to changes in the business environment, or to build and deliver products/services. HCL's Penstock InsureWrite addresses all these challenges.

"Insurance companies must think about handling flexible business support components differently from the more staid policy servicing solutions typically used today. Underwriting is rapidly becoming an area that must be highly agile in order to handle the changing competitive scenarios, market conditions, introduction of new products and changing risk appetites," states Pramod Gupta, Vice President - Financial Services Products, Penstock Product Engineering Group, HCL Technologies. "Our solution is designed to address these needs in a more intuitive way, allowing new rules to be defined more easily and efficiently."

HCL's Penstock InsureWrite was developed by the company's Penstock Product Engineering group, a transformational program designed to launch new-age technology products to solve the operational and transactional problems of global insurers. More than 90 percent of mid-sized insurance carriers today are still using legacy systems for policy underwriting. However, research firm Celent has indicated that mid- to large-sized Property & Casualty insurers have earmarked 10-25 percent of new project spending for underwriting solutions. Insurers are realizing that new models for flow (straight through processing) and transaction (exception handling) business can provide them with improvements in flexibility, operational scope and scale.

Highly flexible, the SOA-based Penstock InsureWrite features pre-configured industry-related content and robust configuring processes to suit dynamic business requirements. The solution replaces legacy policy administration systems by automating the entire underwriting process -- from quote issuance to underwriting, including policy and endorsements issuance -- with a focus on workflow optimization and business rules management. The system also combines policy management solutions with more open capabilities and loading processes, such as claims reporting and front office automation.

Strengthening insurers' strategic risk management capabilities, the Penstock InsureWrite underwrites commoditized risk while restricting the direct intervention by underwriters/Risk Officers to only complex risks and exceptions. The solution also enables the grouping of logically related functions into modules, which can be deployed independently or on a unified basis.