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The insurance industry is not known for being a technology pioneer. Many insurers have been hesitant to embrace new technologies, and that applies to cloud as well as others. However, much as they did with previous new technologies, it’s clear insurers see the writing on the wall. The majority realize they must adopt cloud technology to keep pace with their competitors and with customers’ wants and needs.

In the past, key barriers to insurer cloud adoption have been difficulties in migrating legacy systems combined with concerns over privacy and security. However, most insurers today know they must work to overcome these barriers and make the transition to cloud. This move is crucial to remaining competitive, especially as customer-facing applications continue to drive growth.

Where insurers stand in adopting the cloud

To understand current insurer cloud readiness and help insurers create a path toward full cloud adoption, Accenture recently published an insurer could readiness report based on a global survey of 50 insurance company executives.

The following key findings indicate insurers are ready to make cloud a regular part of their business, with a little help:

• Most insurerers have embraced the cloud and are beginning their transition, but many still have quite a bit of work to do to migrate their core platforms to the cloud.
• Insurers are increasingly turning to the cloud for benefits such as cost savings, speed to market, capacity and flexibility.
• Almost all insurance executives envision a digitally transformed financial services industry over the next five years.

This is encouraging, and is supported by the following more detailed study results:

• Ninety percent of insurers have a coherent, long-term plan for technology innovation that reaches across their entire company.
• Nearly 11 percent of the average insurer’s IT budget will be earmarked for the cloud over the next three years.
• Fifty-six percent of insurers have developed and implemented a new IT operating model to support the transition to the cloud.
• Sixty-eight percent have completed formal planning and analysis of how to move legacy applications to the cloud.

Clearly, insurers are ready to adopt cloud, and are doing the planning required to help ensure a successful transition. However, it’s also clear that they could use some help when it comes to executing their cloud transformations. In my next post, I’ll dig a little deeper into the benefits insurers expect to receive from full cloud adoption, as well as provide some key insights on four focus areas for expanding and accelerating your transition to cloud.

For more information about insurer readiness for the cloud, read the Accenture report: Take Insurance to New Heights.