Introduction

The global insurance BPO market has now grown to a size of US$2 billion, and continues to grow at a fast pace of 17% annually. The number of contracts signed across both the Life & Pensions (L&P) and Property & Casualty (P&C) lines of business in insurance BPO show a steady trend of growth post the financial crisis of 2008. While United States and United Kingdom continue to be the primary markets, insurance BPO is now becoming more global and activity is picking up in other regions of the world too.   

The value proposition of insurance BPO is also growing beyond just cost saving. Insurance firms are now looking at BPO as a key tool to standardize processes and implement new tools.

In this research, we analyze the current trends and the future outlook for third-party BPO services for the global insurance industry. We focus on:

• Market size and growth trends in insurance BPO, adoption trends by geography, and key drivers behind insurance BPO  
• Solution characteristics, focusing on analysis by Line of Business, size and term, adoption by size of financial institution, technology, global sourcing, and pricing structures
• The global service provider landscape in insurance BPO, covering market share, scale, and geographic coverage 

Scope of this report

This report focuses on global, third-party insurance BPO and does not include shared services / global in-house centers. The report also provides coverage of non-voice and industry-specific BPO in insurance across the back-, middle-, and front-office. It does not include the horizontal business processes, such as F&A, HR, and procurement, within the insurance industry.

Content

This report will assist key stakeholders (buyers, service providers, and technology providers) to understand the changing dynamics of the insurance BPO market and help them to identify the trends and outlook for 2012. In this backdrop, this report provides a comprehensive coverage of the global insurance BPO market, including detailed analysis on market size and growth, buyer adoption trends, insurance BPO drivers, contract characteristics, and the service provider landscape. Some of the findings in this report, among others, are:

• Third-party Business Process Services (BPS) in the insurance industry is now a US$6-8 billion market growing at ~17% annually
• After a dip in 2008-2009, BPS in insurance bounced back with 53 new, publicly-announced contracts signed in 2010-2011
• Industry-specific BPO accounts for over 60% of BPO contracts in insurance, spanning product development and business acquisition, new business, policy servicing and reporting, and claims processing
• Insurance BPO is now expanding beyond the primary markets of United States and United Kingdom – Asia Pacific showed significantly increased activity over the last one to two years
• As BPO activity matures in large insurance companies, the small- and medium-sized insurance companies are emerging as growth drivers