Industries

Insurance

ISG advises life, annuity, property and casualty and reinsurance carriers on the sourcing, platform and provider decisions that move expense ratio, claims performance and regulatory resilience.

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Insurance Advisory Services for Cost, Claims and AI Performance

Insurers are working with less pricing power than they've had in years. Rates are softening, premium growth is slowing and claims keep getting more expensive to settle. The pressure is heaviest in liability lines and in life and annuity businesses running bigger books on systems built for smaller ones. Whether you underwrite, service or reinsure, performance now turns on two numbers - what it costs to run the business, and what it costs to settle a claim.

ISG partners with insurers across life, annuity, property and casualty and reinsurance to improve performance where the money moves. Operating cost, claims, sourcing and the platforms underneath them. Insurance is one of the biggest adopters of AI, and the returns land where the data and the operating model are ready for it. We help enterprises get them ready, price the work against the market and hold providers to what they committed to deliver.

ISG helps insurers:

Reduce operating cost across policy servicing, claims and contact centre operations
Design operating models that fit the book, including offshore, global capability centre and managed service options
Benchmark what you pay providers, and take renewals and retenders to market
Structure, negotiate and govern provider relationships so the value survives the signature
Apply AI and analytics to underwriting, claims triage and fraud detection
Modernise policy administration and claims platforms, and sequence the migration
Meet DORA, EU AI Act and third-party risk obligations across the provider estate
Realise value from mergers, acquisitions, closed blocks and large-scale change

How we Help Insurers Reduce Cost & Improve Claims Performance

A major contract is coming up for renewal

Renewal pricing rarely reflects what the market charges today. We benchmark what you are paying against comparable deals, work out whether to renegotiate, retender or bring the work back in-house, and run the process to your timetable.

Costs are rising faster than earnings

Premium growth has slowed and the cost of running the business has not followed it down. We work out how much of that cost you can realistically change across policy servicing, customer contact and back office, compare what you pay with what other insurers pay for the same work, and set out the options. Move it offshore, set up your own service centre, hand it to a managed service provider, or fix what you already have.

Claims cost more to settle than they should

Claims are getting more expensive to settle and the way they are handled has not kept pace. We look at where cost escapes across triage, adjuster capacity, subrogation and fraud, compare your cost per claim with what other insurers spend, and agree a scorecard with your third-party administrator and outsourcing partners covering cycle times and leakage. If the numbers still do not work, we test the market.

A core platform is holding everything else back

Policy administration and claims systems that cannot expose their data block automation, reporting and AI at the same time. We help you choose the platform, the integrator and the run model as one decision, price the work against the market, and hold providers to the migration they signed up for.

AI is not getting past the pilot stage

The pilots work and the business case does not follow. We set the use cases against where cost and risk actually sit, put governance and model oversight in place so they can scale, and make sure your providers are paid for outcomes rather than deployment.

Regulators, auditors and the board want evidence

DORA, the EU AI Act and third-party risk rules land on contracts signed years ago. We map which providers are critical, test the contract terms against each obligation, and stand up the register, the model inventory and the reporting you will be asked to produce.

Typical Outcomes of an ISG Engagement

X% reduction in operating cost per policy serviced
X-Y% savings against incumbent pricing at renewal
Lower claims leakage and shorter cycle times
Provider performance measured on outcomes rather than activity
Faster time from decision to signed contract

Your Key Questions Answered

Can you benchmark our policy administration and claims cost against comparable carriers?

We benchmark both. ISG ProBenchmark^® and ISG Inform^™; hold current pricing and service data from comparable transactions, normalised for scale, geography and scope.

How fast can a renewal or retender run?

Timelines depend on scope and incumbent position. ISG Tango^™ compresses requirement gathering and bid comparison, and we run the schedule to the renewal date rather than the other way round.

We already have a systems integrator. Where does ISG fit in?

The integrator delivers. We hold the commercial terms, the milestones and the scorecard, which is what protects the business case when the plan changes.

What does DORA actually require from our provider contracts?

A register of critical third-party arrangements, contractual terms covering access, audit, subcontracting and exit, tested resilience arrangements, and reporting the supervisor can inspect. We assess the estate against each obligation and close the gaps in contract and governance.

Which insurance lines do you cover?

Life and annuity, property and casualty, reinsurance and specialty, across quote-to-claim operations and the technology estate supporting them.