Central’s InsurTech Team: A Successful Use Case in Connecting Business Needs with Technology Solutions

Connecting business needs with technology solutions can be a complex dynamic for any business.

For many companies, tech adds functionality to the systems supporting various stakeholders. Leveling up requires exploring customer wants, then layering on new technology solutions to meet those emerging and evolving needs.

Beyond that, successful integration requires bringing together the right leadership and teams to build a deeper understanding of what’s needed, where you’re collectively going, and how to best achieve getting there. We recently sat down with Farres Moidu, Senior Director of Software Engineering at Central Insurance, to explore what that looks like for Central.

The Key to Successfully Connecting Business and Technology

In his experience integrating business needs and technology, Moidu emphasizes the importance of weighing the opportunity cost against how the team plans to deploy their time and resources.

“Time often proves more costly than dollars, making it critical to consider how best to utilize a limited set of engineering cycles. This ranges from developing a fully-robust tech solution to something that doubles down on a single part of the experience to a combination of the two.”

Although making that call can be complicated, he insists the most critical step for any business is forecasting what the customer needs, whether you can deliver on what you promise to build, and how to respond if you’re ultimately wrong about either of these components.

“You can’t come at this kind of innovation solely through the tech or experience lens; it’s an interwoven relationship. We’re collectively tasked with figuring out where to place our bets.”

How has Central utilized tech to improve product offerings?

As a billion-dollar insurance carrier serving policyholders for almost 150 years, there are countless exciting opportunities to elevate Central’s products and improve the customer experience.

Moidu identifies a few key stakeholders looking for this kind of support:

Underwriters, whose job is to consider the amount of risk an insurance carrier is willing to take on

Regional vice presidents tasked with selling to local agents

The Claims team, which focuses on servicing policyholders

Compliance regulators who ensure the company is delivering on its promise

Moidu emphasizes that each stakeholder group has its specific tech needs. This has led to many unique opportunities for innovation and creativity within Central’s insurtech division.

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A Focus On Tech Solutions in Claims Handling Processes

As of spring 2023, Modiu explains that his team has been intently focused on claims stakeholders and their unique business needs. This included finding a new roadside assistance vendor to meet their customer service standards.

“This transformation is a significant exercise for the business,” he explains. “Our Claims team identified pain points, then sourced a vendor they believed could best alleviate those challenges. From a tech perspective, that’s extremely helpful when we don’t have a product solution that stands out. By Claims doing their due diligence and making a solid business case for their recommendation, engineering can now focus on exploring integration with the vendor.”

The Technical Development of Central’s “Businessowners Policy”

The Businessowners Policy (BOP) is another tool that Modiu and his team have focused on developing after agent feedback indicated a perceived gap between the market and Central’s product offering.

After learning that agents found it difficult to send certain types of business to Central due to a product gap, Moidu and his team got to work developing a product to meet those needs.

“We collectively began considering what we want our BOP experience to look like and what the options could be,” he explains. “The first option was to automate everything, which would require a significant time investment and push the launch far into the future. The second option was to filter a narrower set of coverages and details that benefit most from automation.”

After much consideration, the engineering team decided to go with the second option, effectively reducing the time and resources they would have needed to build from scratch. This allowed the BOP tool to go to market much sooner than if they’d aimed for total automation.

The Importance of a Collaborative Approach

As Modiu sees it, the strategic application of tech solutions to help with existing business needs must be viewed as the responsibility of both the engineering and insurance sides of an organization. He emphasizes the need for both teams to come together in a spirit of collaboration to do it right.

At Central, for instance, the digital product organization (DPO) works closely with the insurance product organization (IPO). Where IPO focuses on the different ways the organization can build and sell insurance, the DPO specializes in the approach the organization can take to building that technology or crafting the desired experiences.

“On the IPO side, there are many specific financial and legal details to consider. They work with actuarial on everything from how much risk we’re willing to take to the specific payment amounts tied to different claims,” Modiu explains. “On the other hand, DPO focuses on how we communicate with agents and agent IT systems to ensure Central ranks at the top of the list when they’re searching for the best solutions.”

The Impact of DPO and IPO Collaboration on the Development of BOP at Central

When it came to developing the BOP, Modiu recalls that the IPO team recognized the gap in Central’s portfolio.

“There was a need in the market, and we had an opportunity to develop a product to meet it,” he says.

As a result, the IPO started a dialogue with the DPO about what the product should be, what features it should include, and what the overall user experience should look like. It wasn’t until the two teams agreed a digital asset was necessary that the tech team got involved, bringing options and timelines.

Modiu believes integrating engineering in these conversations is most effective and well-received when the engineering team provides several options from which the product team chooses the best fit.

“We like to come at product development through a few different lenses,” he says. “First, does the market care about this? Assuming the market wants it, what digital features do we want to layer on? The biggest risk comes when we know the market wants it and the exact features needed. This increases risk simply because it tends to involve a lot of expense and time.”

Advice for Companies Embarking on Connecting Business Needs with Tech Solutions

With years of experience bridging the gap between the needs of an organization and the engineers who can make them a reality, we asked Moidu to offer a few key takeaways to help organizations get started on this process. Here’s what he had to say:

1. Don’t operate in a silo.

“Tech and business needs shouldn’t live and operate separately. It’s our job to make sure we build the right solutions for specific problems in the marketplace. Product and research teams help us do that by accurately assessing the problem or opportunity, so we don’t make giant and inaccurate investments upfront.

2. Get executive sponsorship early and often.

“For tech to be successful, executive sponsorship at the highest level is vital. To fully support it, leaders must understand why this thinking matters and how it will be deployed. Central’s CEO and President drove many of the initial conversations about where and how tech would fit into our company, and what other leaders should expect. He also educated himself by looking at what our peers and leaders in other industries were doing, both of which have been extremely important and helpful as we’ve undergone such large-scale changes.”

3. Don’t underestimate the power of your people.

“People are a huge part of the equation. Ensure you have the right leaders and teams at all levels. Look for people willing to adapt how they work. It’s critical they understand the way things were done before may have worked in silos, but that won’t necessarily be the case with integrated teams. There’s a lot of required overlap, negotiation, and partnership when connecting business needs with tech solutions. You need to deploy people in product and engineering roles that embrace that thinking. You want them to bring different perspectives, but shared values and a mutual goal will ultimately drive success that moves everyone forward together.”

Opportunities to Join Central’s Tech-Focused Future

A core part of Central’s IT success depends on hiring the right people and assembling the right teams. The company’s IT culture is rooted in the collaborative spirit of a startup backed by 150 years of investment in innovation and proven success. Leadership values what IT brings and goes all in on the tech, teams, and talent to make it happen.

Depth of relationships and connections has always set Central apart from other insurance companies. IT development shouldn’t happen in a vacuum or silo. As our teams work together to drive tech and innovation at Central, we’re growing with excitement and intention. We recognize the leadership potential in everyone, and we strive to unlock it in those who want to make an impact. Central is a perfect size if you want to build, create, innovate, and take ownership of what you do. Our size allows us to be nimble and adaptable, and it provides meaningful opportunities to explore and grow by providing opportunities you’re not likely to find at massive insurance companies.

If you’re looking for a job where someone will tell you what to do and how to do it, Central probably isn’t the place for you. But if you feel energized by the opportunity to take something from inspiration to ideation to implementation, explore current job opportunities here.