Biba blog: Big Data development

The information is already there waiting for us and analysis is vital to harvest it in order to gain a competitive advantage and tailor our customer offering, the issue is regulation; at what point will customers regard behavioural tracking as more of an infringement than an asset?

Technical strides in the industry have transformed our ability to calculate behaviour and reliably assess potential threats, weeding out dishonest consumers via pre-quote risk assessment. The consequence is that this could leave certain parts of society with no means of affordable cover. The need to give something back to customers in exchange for trusting us with their data further complicates the proposition. It's therefore vital that we are proactive about privacy, security and governance.

I read a recent statistic on IBM that stated 80% of CEOs believe that they deliver a superior customer experience, yet only 8% of their customers agree. This substantial mismatch in perception led me to consider the implications of how our view of Big Data might vary to that of our customers.

At Markerstudy, we have invested heavily in our own systems in order to gain the USPs of flexibility, speed of change and quote manipulation data to match the direct market. This valuable information will undoubtedly enhance our service to brokers, offering more precise predictions and saving the market time and money.

For us as an industry it's an exciting time, full of opportunity. The trick will be finding ways to build and retain relationships with our best customers and keep them satisfied with this innovation so that they view Big Data as the ‘hero' that we're foretelling and not the ‘villain'.

Gary Humphreys is group underwriting director at Markerstudy 

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