It’s no secret that capturing and retaining customers in today’s digital economy requires modern back-end and front-end systems. What IS a surprise, however, is that some insurers still leave valuable data on legacy systems even when modern systems are in place.

Maybe the risk versus reward was questionable in the past, but today, migrating policy data can be a competitive differentiator. After all, data is the currency of the modern digital business, and insurers have invested considerable amounts of money to obtain it. With advances in tools and the maturity of today’s process methodologies, policy migration is more cost effective, streamlined and predictable for insurers who may have felt that the risks were too great compared to the return on investment.

The maturity of migration techniques comes at a time when AI, and its capacity to leverage data in more powerful ways, is gaining traction among insurers. In Accenture’s Technology Vision for Insurance 2018, of the more than 600 insurance executives surveyed worldwide, 77 percent said that AI is advancing faster than their organization’s pace of adoption. The report also says that AI is moving from back-office automation to front-line customer service – all driven by data.

The power of AI is recognized when insurers combine legacy data with other data sets to create inferences, often yielding connections that humans could not discover on their own. Such inferences could lead to new insurance products and increase opportunities for cross-sell, up-sell and retention by enabling more personalized and relevant experiences. They can also lead to new collaborative relationships between insurers and their employees and partners in ways that add sustained value to each other and the customer.

The evidence has never been stronger to support migrating legacy blocks as part of a strategic data enterprise approach. If you’ve already modernized your new business, underwriting or policy administration system, or considered modernizing, think about migrating your data. What once was fraught with risk and cost has now become a viable option that can yield new opportunity. Learn more about cost-effective ways to migrate legacy data in our latest point of view, Legacy Blocks: Should They Stay or Should They Go? authored by Mitch Ludwig, Accenture Life and Annuity Software Professional Services Lead.