Submitter
Randy Sykes, IT Director of Data Services
Company
Hastings Mutual Insurance Company
Industry
Insurance
Business Challenge
Democratization of business data supporting business decisions and processes has become the largest challenge facing the Hastings Mutual’s Data/BI team. In 2018, a financial data warehouse was made available. Through the team’s ability to quickly provide proven data sets and KPI dashboards, trust of and demand for the information mounted. Having data available within 24 hours instead of 30 to 45 days later from legacy reports released an enormous pent up demand for timely, trustworthy, decision-quality information. Providing a continuous stream of data to the business’ decision makers was needed - adding staff was not a cost-effective option.
Analytics Solution
The goal of analytics is to be able to measurably boost an organization’s performance. Taking the data from the warehouse and providing it in structures that were business oriented and accessible was the first step in democratizing the information. The next step was providing an end-user tool that was relatively easy to use and ensured that the correct data-element relationships were maintained. Sisense was adopted as the corporate BI and visualization tool and has provided both exploratory data analysis (EDA), identifying revenue opportunities, and confirmatory data analysis (CDA), tracking results as actions were taken.
Impact
Our journey to a data-driven culture has yielded significant benefits in 2020: democratization of data, top line growth, bottom line expense reductions, process improvements and innovation opportunities. With readily available data and analytical tools, the business has identified market and product opportunities resulting in over $3.5 million in premium revenue while reducing cost related to claims by 18.5%. An innovative data-driven use of RPA BOT increased customer goodwill through timely, accurate COVID-19 related refunds. We expect to continue our innovation using AI to make underwriting and claim adjusting decisions, simplifying the agent experience and freeing staff to assist our agents and insureds in a continually changing market.