Introduction
This paper focuses on the life insurance section that has become much popular because of its importance and necessity. There are various trends emerging in the modern life or healthcare insurance sector. Firstly, one has to note the emergence of universal healthcare insurance being financed by the government. There are programs like Obamacare which have really led to unprecedented issues within the life insurance sector. There is the issue of implementing technology in managing information and communication within the life insurance sector. Thirdly, it is important to recognize the trend of workplace insurance plans which have now become popular in countries across the world. The issue selected is the use of business technology systems by insurance companies to improve services.
Trends
Today, notable trends have emerged in the life insurance sector, which continue to shape its success indicators for companies dealing in this business. The country is now witnessing the trend of increased government involvement in insuring its citizens. The United States Federal Government has in the past been rolling out universal healthcare insurance policies meant to ensure every citizen is covered to get medical attention when in need. In the past, the United States Government did not show much concern for the insurance sector ( Lynch, 2017) . The life insurance sector was really dominated by the private sector with companies taking advantage of this situation to offer exorbitantly high premiums on all plans. However, with the increase in government investment into the insurance industry through the universal healthcare insurance policies, the citizenry is now witnessing falling prices and affordable life covers. It is important to note that the government also introduced the package of out-patient insurance covers. It implies that people can now use their universal insurance cards to seek out-patient medical attention. This development has also been imported into the private sector with new policies targeting the out-patient customers ( Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016) . Previously, insurance was only used for in-patient services on admission of patients.
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The second trend is about the workplace insurance covers being provided by organizations across the world. Today, many organizations are pooling all their permanent employees together to acquire affordable insurance covers for them, from the private insurers. Through pooling together all employees on one insurance plan, employers are now able to enjoy the economies of scale and have favourable terms bargained for the workers. This trend has been enhanced by the fact that government now requires organizations to provide insurance for the employees, which is currently limited to the national universal cover ( Morgan & Stewart, 2017) . Many employers go to an extra length of providing another separate private life insurance policy for employees with the insurance providers. It is also important to observe the fact that many insurance companies are earning huge profits through the workplace healthcare insurance policies.
The third trend is about the implementation of technology in the healthcare insurance companies. The implementation of technology is mostly being adopted in the areas of operations, communication and information management ( Robinson et al., 2017) . The advancement of technology promises to revolutionize service delivery within life insurance companies in the United States of America. There are various technological trends that are bound to take place in the 21 st century, especially in the public insurance sector. For far too long, the public sector has been lurking behind the private industry in terms technology adoption. However, there appears to be a fresh determination by public life insurance managers to advance towards full adoption of technology. One notable trend expected to take effect within the public sector healthcare insurance is mobile engagement.
Notably, mobile engagement involves the use of smart devices to interact and process information. Many people are now using devices like smart-phones and iPads. Mobile engagement devices are highly portable hence convenient for interaction and data processing. The mode in which this technology works involves use of the internet and website platforms. People interact in real time through internet platforms using smart-phones.
The Federal government has been highly sluggish in adopting mobile engagement technology. Government offices have always preferred to have citizens physically present to be served. Consequently, citizens never get satisfied with the service delivered to them. Some fail to be addressed because of long queues. However, the 21 st century will see the government adopt mobile engagement technology to make service delivery in universal life insurance efficient, effective and convenient (Brinkman, 2016). In this case, the agency in charge of universal health insurance will start to engage citizens through mobile devices. Public data will be made available to the public through online platforms. Citizens will be allowed to access public data online. There are bound to be programs such as e-citizen, e-pay and e-procurement. Citizens will be expected to apply for tenders online. Payment to those who do business with the government’s life insurance agency will also be done through an online platform. In essence, the interaction of pubic insurance managers with citizens will become digitized.
The adoption of mobile engagement technology will affect the work of a public manager. Firstly, it will make public management work easy and effective (Brinkman, 2016). Public managers will be able to serve many citizens daily. Moreover, the adoption of this technology will improve public management accountability. It is not easy to hide things done on the internet. Therefore, corruption in public offices is expected to decline significantly.
However, the adoption of mobile engagement technology will also face barriers. The first major barrier is the high cost of implementing this adoption. The use of online platforms to deliver services to the public is a costly endeavor (Fuller et al., 2018). The Federal government will have to dig deeper into its coffers to sustain such investment. Therefore, the high cost of implementation will limit the extent to which technology adoption is done.
The other major barrier will be resistance from employees. The use of manual systems of service delivery by government managers is a source of employment for many people. There are many record-keepers who earn salary from the work of managing files in public offices (Booth et al., 2017). There are also office messengers who earn their salary from the work of collecting and depositing parcels at the post offices. All these workers whose jobs will be under high threat are expected to resist technology adoption through their labor unions.
Another significant barrier will be the threat of cyber insecurity and network transmission risks. In the modern world where hackers are always sophisticating their attack methods, the Federal government may be reluctant to fully adopt mobile engagement, especially in high-risk services such as payment for services done as well as goods delivered by members of the public.
The issue chosen in this paper under the trend of technological advancement is the use of business systems like ERP to manage information within the insurance companies. ERP is a business system that connects different departments within an organization. An ERP aims at ensuring a company achieves effectively synchronized business functions for efficiency in customer service. The ERP system may integrate customer relationship, financial control through accounting and human resource management to form a complete system of streamlined processes and shared information. Really, the essence of ERP is sharing information on a single platform where different people can access it at the same time. It becomes easy to perform the various procedures involving more than one department in the entity when ERP system is applied.
Understandably, the central and special quality of ERP is normally the feature of a shared database. The database used in development of ERP does support many and diverse functions. It can be used by different business departments. It implies that workers from different departments like the sales and accounting units may access and rely on the same information at the same time. This specific feature allows for speedy decision making process in an organization. With the use of ERP, there is a significant level of synchronized reporting and automation. It implies that separate employees do not have to come together and generate reports. This work is done by ERP solutions, which allow staff to retrieve reports from a single system. A good example is a case where sales orders automatically flow into a financial system without re-keying manually. The department in charge of managing orders can process customer requests accurately and fast. At the same time, the finance department is able to close its accounting books quickly. The other important ERP feature is presence of a portal or dashboard, which enables employees to have a fast understanding of business performance on key metrics. Today, life insurance companies continue to adopt the use of ERP to advance service delivery.
Conclusion
The insurance industry is one of the fastest growing and developing sectors of the world economy. The insurance industry is comprised of diverse cover packages with varied products for the customers in the market. It is important to note that there are two major parts of the insurance industry. There is life or healthcare insurance and the property insurance which mostly targets motor vehicles and real estates. The issue of technological advancement will positively revolutionize the life insurance industry and make it even more profitable to providers. Moreover, companies stand the chance of reaching out to many people if they enhance the use of advanced technology in communication and information management.
References
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