Member Spotlight: ICE InsureTech
What is the history of ICE InsureTech?
Founded in 2002, ICE InsureTech (ICE) provides administration system solutions for the general insurance market. Since 2002, ICE has evolved to serve a broad mix of businesses, from small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporates. Whilst the company was initially known for its claims platform for motor lines, activities are now equally balanced between policy and claims administration along multiple lines of business. The company is also a subsidiary of the Acturis Group as of 2017 and has offices in Poland and Malaysia, specialising in product development and quality assurance.
What is your current role?
I am the Client Services Director at ICE, responsible for overall client engagement from initial implementation through to the ongoing client relationships. This involves overseeing change programmes via upgrade and enhancement projects and their associated contractual and commercial agreements.
I have seen a lot of change since rejoining the business in 2014. ICE has moved from a small client base of primarily small or niche businesses to now having clients that include a number of large corporates.
What products does ICE offer?
The ICE suite consists of modular products with the well-known solutions being ICE Policy and ICE Claims. When used in conjunction, these products provide a full-cycle insurance administration service. Insurers, MGAs and third-party administrators (TPAs) tend to be the main users. ICE also offers additional product modules. One of these, ICE Analytics is a business intelligence platform using the Microsoft Reporting suite. There is also ICE Digital, a fully responsive and robust B2B/B2C portals and integration suite. ICE Cloud is also available and is a fully managed and hosted offering available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the ICE product suite.
What client problems does ICE seek to solve?
Most clients are looking for an administration system that will improve business efficiency, others may want to move away from a restrictive legacy platform. SMEs, in particular, tend to require a technology stack that they can scale with their business.
ICE products give clients flexibility to use the core policy and claims administration systems individually, in combination or add on later. All of our clients use the ICE Analytics capabilities and are taking ICE digital, with our suite of APIs allowing clients to write their own portals, outsource to 3rd parties or use ICE-developed portals. ICE’s policy and claims products are also no-code or low-code at the configuration stage which means that businesses do not need to write code for new products and schemes. For example, clients can easily create workflows or allow straight-through claims processing where appropriate. ICE’s flexible configuration means that companies can also adapt their system to meet changing business needs. Clients can also use their own third-party vendors and integrations, use ICE’s ecosystem partners and integrations with ICE’s ESB gateway which is integration tool.
Can you give an example of a client success story with ICE
In 2021 ICE was tasked with integrating ICE Policy within an insurance start-up’s existing policy administration They took the ICE platform out of the box. The implementation was about configuring their products and integrating with their IT stack, which included their own rating and integration with enrichment and Price Comparison Websites (PCWs). The stack was still in the design phase so it was a collaborative effort of two technical teams working closely together. This required regular meetings with the company’s chief technology officer (CTO) and his team to understand their changing needs as the product developed. The policy project began in July 2021 and the company was able to sell and launch its policies by December 2021. We are now working with them to implement ICE Claims and have a very strong working relationship where both parties are focused on mutual benefit.
How do you maintain the client relationship once solutions have been implemented?
Ongoing relationships will vary depending on the client, for example, some of our clients prefer quarterly executive meetings whilst SMEs prefer weekly or fortnightly meetings to keep in touch with what’s going on or deal with any emerging needs or issues. ICE will always offer a standard approach of monthly service delivery and quarterly strategy reviews. This allows ICE to use client feedback to develop its products and ensure that product upgrades continue to meet clients’ needs. Regular feedback from our clients is that they appreciate that we are known to them at all levels and that we ‘don’t go away’ after the implementation.
What ICE product innovations have been released in 2022 and how are clients using them?
ICE develops four core product releases per year, which incorporate the product enhancements designed from client feedback and ICE’s internal product investment. One of the most successful innovations in 2022 includes a usage-based insurance capability, initially developed with a motor client, but with a configuration that can be used across other lines of business. This has since been released as an ICE Policy product with several clients looking to take advantage of this upgrade shortly. ICE has also launched a multi-scheme quoting capability to deliver a comparative quote with varying underwriting criteria.
What is the focus of your innovation activities for 2023?
ICE is keen to develop its partnership network and insurtechs to strengthen our breadth of capabilities and services. ICE aims to be able to work with any insurtech service provider to offer its clients new capabilities and services. This will involve adding integrations, for example incorporating different merchant service providers or data enrichment partners.
How has InsTech membership enabled ICE to further its brand awareness in the insurance community?
We see Instech as a community of like-minded people in the industry. ICE has been able to increase its brand awareness by being both a frequent attendee and speaker at events. These events give ICE exposure and access to a community of potential partners and customers. Andrew Passfield, ICE’s CEO, also received the 1,000 fans award from InsTech for his podcast which also boosted the company’s reputation within InsTech’s community.
To learn more about ICE’s product suite and partnership network please visit the company’s website or contact [email protected]