Insurers need to reach for the cloud
The re/insurance industry needs to embrace the advantages in time and processing power that the cloud can give their modelling and other computer-generated planning processes, Jonathan Silverman, director of insurance industry solutions at Microsoft, told PCI Today.
“One of the things we started doing a number of years ago was looking at the public cloud to enhance the risk process. How could customers and partners take advantage of cloud resources in order to bring back results sets faster?
“As an example we did a test where we took the world’s population, gave them all a $100,000 life insurance policy, ran a stochastic model and estimated that if we ran it on a single core [processing unit] it would take approximately 19 years to bring back the results,” said Silverman.
“We found that when we took that same model and ran it on 50,000 cores the results came back in under 90 minutes.”
He pointed out that when risk managers and actuaries ran their models in the past, some of those models would run for days.
Today, with the ability to ‘burst’—to use more cores—companies are able to run that same model in an hour over lunch.
Microsoft has been cooperating with RMS and Silverman used the latter as an example. “When RMS runs a model and the results that come back are available in a cloud environment they can take advantage of all the tools we have from a big data perspective, not only to help with analysing the data but also to make recommendations, as well as spotting anomalies in their business models.”
Silverman stressed that people should not be concerned about potentially important information being released as a result of security breaches in the cloud, largely because they do not realise how secure the cloud can be.
“When we take our customers to a Microsoft data centre and show them the difference between how we do it versus how they do it, we usually find that the customers walk away saying ‘wow, I don’t know why we’ve been so afraid of the cloud, based on the way that Microsoft deals with security and compliance and works with the regulators’. They realise that the cloud isn’t as risky as they thought it was.”
Get the latest re/insurance news sent to your inbox every day - Sign up to our free email newsletters
Other stories from today's PCI newsletter
SCOR vows to take a nuanced view on rate rises, assessing clients on a case-by-case basis
Beazley seeks global rate hikes of 5 to 10% for renewals
Risk-based pricing is best way to manage the burden of flood losses
Insurtech firms become MGAs out of frustration
Alternative thinking: the historic rise of ILS
Cat losses demonstrate value and resilience of industry
ILS capacity demystified for US cedants
2017 insured losses could total $100 billion: RMS
Expert support for catastrophe and exposure management
Cedants: how much coverage to buy?
Firms grasp importance of data assets, yet don’t insure risk
Anticipate change and innovate: Sampson
RAA highlights growth opportunities at PCI
Wildfires among the costliest on record
PCI unveils new officers to board of governors
Technology should mean evolution
$93bn premium forecast in US homeowners’ insurance
The bottom of the cycle has been reached
Already registered?
Login to your account
If you don't have a login or your access has expired, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content.
For more information on individual annual subscriptions for full paid access and corporate subscription options please contact us.
To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Elliot Field at efield@newtonmedia.co.uk or Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk
Editor's picks
Editor's picks
More articles
Copyright © intelligentinsurer.com 2024 | Headless Content Management with Blaze