How integral is technology to Chase Insurances business strategy?
Bostick: In today’s economy, it’s important that you’re able to deliver automation to the line of business that you’re dedicated to, both to reduce cost and scale the business up and down in response to business opportunities that arise. And in the banking environment, offerings such as consumer lending, mortgage refinancing, savings accounts, etc., have cycles whereby volume can skyrocket. Then, all of a sudden, with an interest rate change, activity stops. My new colleagues are much more in tune with the idea that there has to be a strong level of automation that allows you to bring the business up and down in size rapidly in response to opportunities. I&T: How might this affect your near-term technology investment? Bostick: We’re making a major investment in simplifying our life policy administration and life new business processing so that we have one platform. Many other insurers have taken the same route, but we never had the investment to do that at Zurich Life. Now we do, so we
