Continuing our Topic....Today we will touch upon "Insurance Basics"
Firstly, Who should read this?
If you are a beginner in the Insurance Industry or Insurance related field like IT, Business.
If you are an IT Techie and are working in the Insurance domain for sometime now...this article is for you
If you are someone who has a liking for insurance or are curious about the inner know-hows and basics
or someone who wants to have some valueadd to his knowledge and skills.....go ahead and read
I came to the insurance industry quite by chance. For around 4 years since i graduated i had worked on C++ and Java assignments..all non-Insurance. Then i joined a company which specialized in Property and Casualty Insurance - Policy, Billing and Claims Administration Product development and Installation. I was the solutions architect for the product. I loved what i did there....This job Introduced me to the insurance industry and showed me how product functionality and performance considerations gave us Happy customers...and sometimes poor management and mis-alignment of objectives gives unhapy customers, but let's keep that for another article.....
Coming to Insurance basics,
Why do we need Insurance?
Insurance is a very thriving and an absolutely necessary industry which has borne the shocks of the failing economy. To think of it, be it an bear market or bull, everyone needs insurance, right from buying a home to a car or your personal health and life to insuring smaller electronic gadgets and devices...Insurance is everywhere.
Insurance is a form of risk management and mitigation technique wherein you pay the insurer a "Premium" to accept a portion or all of your associated "risk". And if god forbid, things do go wrong, as they sometimes do, you-The Insured, will file a "claim" and based on the Insurance premium you pay, the "coverages" that you have applicable on your "policy", the insurance company "Adjuster" will work with you and try to work with you on the "Actual Value" or the "Market value" based on the years of "Depreciation" of the Item that you are insured and are claiming for...with the objective of ensuring the "Insured" gets to the "same economic situation" as before. The Objective of Insurance is to cover the loss, so that insured bounces back to the same economic state as before the loss.
This is as elementary as i can get to explain what is insurance to a Layman.
Where did the Insurance concept come from?
Long time ago, when there were to TVs, planes or IPods....when traders and merchants took their goods to faraway places for trading, sometimes they lost the goods to weather conditions, pirates or some other Loss making situations and had to bear a loss. So they came up with rather ingenious ways to "self-Insure" their goods or mitigate their "Risk" or losses.
The Merchants would get together and pool a set amount of money so as to compensate the trader who lost his goods or they would sometimes give extra amount of money to the lenders, from whom they bought goods as a means of insuring against losses in trade.
What are the types of Insurance?
As i said, Insurance is applicable and available in all walks of life...right from Personal to commercial..within that at a very high level, you can dividie insurance into Life, General and Health. Within General you have personal, Commercial. Within that you have Property and Casualty.
The area within Personal and Commercial at a High level would be,
Auto, General Liability, Property, Worker's Comp, Home Owners, Inland Marine, Specialty Lines etc. Each of these, as their names suggest cater to a specific area of Business. There are certain insurance companies that deal with certain specialities or some that do a mix.
There is also another interesting area within Insurance called Re-Insurance wherein, an Insurance Carriers (also called Ceding Company) reinsures part or all of his associated risk with another Company (Reinsurer). The Insurance agreements between them are of various types namely Facultative or Treaty reinsurance etc based on the risk selection criteria etc
What are the industry known and recognized certifications?
Now that you have a basic background and knowledge about insurance, to gain more insight into your particular area of expertise, be it a specific Product like Guidewire, Pega, DuckCreek, Accenture etc related to Policy, Billing and Claims Administration or you aim to become to Business SME for Policy, Billing or Claims...
Make sure you find a right mentor to lead you and guide you in the right direction. Take firm and steady steps towards your career goals and confidently rise the success ladder.
Let me know if you have any specific questions or doubts, i will be glad to help and will try to guide and direct you in the proper direction
Do let me know through your comments if you found the article helpful.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Training, Coaching and Mentoring-I - The Basics
"Practice makes a man perfect"...But before practice comes - getting knowledge (or trained) in your area of choice....
To achieve excellence in any field you need to start with Training and Guidance,...followed by your Hardwork, dedication and gradual experience.
In today's competitive world, nothing comes easy....To gain an entry and make your mark in the favorite field, it has becoming increasingly difficult.
This article is for all those who are trying to enter the IT field or are looking to gain experience in their favorite area of work.
In one of my projects, I had a colleague who was an excellent integration developer and a solutions architect, but somehow he felt his calling was being a business analyst.
Then there were those who were Insurance business domain experts and want to try their hand at Project Management, based on their leadership qualities.
One of my colleagues from India recently got married. His wife was from the IT background back home, but had stopped working for past few years. Now she wanted to restart her career. I sat with them to see where her skillsets and background would fit, so she could contribute her knowledge and grow professionally and personally as well.
I gave them my two cents and that somehow led me thinking to this blog article and maybe a few subsequent few to follow. Bear in mind, i can only write about areas that i am know of.
So coming back, here are the steps i advise to my friends who are planning a change in their area of expertise or planning to gain more exposure to their favorite area of work
Analyze your interests - strengths and weakness
- Helps you gain insight on what you can do and need to work on. Builds your focus areas
Plan for the area of work
- Systematically find mentors or someone who can coach you, guide you and point you in the right direction
Gain systematic knowledge and exposure
- Gain knowledge, experience and real time exposure which is key.
Confidently march towards your dreams
- Last but not the least...go get'em tiger....
All the above steps are very important because once you have the requisite knowleldge and exposure, it helps boost your morale and confidence when you go for an interview.
If you are new to the IT Industry or going to enter a specialized Industry like IT for Insurance, it is always to your advantage to have some project background.
In the next few posts i will try to give some guidelines on some specific areas of work like Project Management, Business Analysis, Insurance basics, Packaged solutions for Insurance etc..so keep reading..
Also, please let me know your comments and feedback
To achieve excellence in any field you need to start with Training and Guidance,...followed by your Hardwork, dedication and gradual experience.
In today's competitive world, nothing comes easy....To gain an entry and make your mark in the favorite field, it has becoming increasingly difficult.
This article is for all those who are trying to enter the IT field or are looking to gain experience in their favorite area of work.
In one of my projects, I had a colleague who was an excellent integration developer and a solutions architect, but somehow he felt his calling was being a business analyst.
Then there were those who were Insurance business domain experts and want to try their hand at Project Management, based on their leadership qualities.
One of my colleagues from India recently got married. His wife was from the IT background back home, but had stopped working for past few years. Now she wanted to restart her career. I sat with them to see where her skillsets and background would fit, so she could contribute her knowledge and grow professionally and personally as well.
I gave them my two cents and that somehow led me thinking to this blog article and maybe a few subsequent few to follow. Bear in mind, i can only write about areas that i am know of.
So coming back, here are the steps i advise to my friends who are planning a change in their area of expertise or planning to gain more exposure to their favorite area of work
Analyze your interests - strengths and weakness
- Helps you gain insight on what you can do and need to work on. Builds your focus areas
Plan for the area of work
- Systematically find mentors or someone who can coach you, guide you and point you in the right direction
Gain systematic knowledge and exposure
- Gain knowledge, experience and real time exposure which is key.
Confidently march towards your dreams
- Last but not the least...go get'em tiger....
All the above steps are very important because once you have the requisite knowleldge and exposure, it helps boost your morale and confidence when you go for an interview.
If you are new to the IT Industry or going to enter a specialized Industry like IT for Insurance, it is always to your advantage to have some project background.
In the next few posts i will try to give some guidelines on some specific areas of work like Project Management, Business Analysis, Insurance basics, Packaged solutions for Insurance etc..so keep reading..
Also, please let me know your comments and feedback
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Project Management Styles
Yesterday my 4 year old son wanted candies for Dinner and i firmly gave him 'No Candies for Dinner' speech. It was a difficult task, i am sure you all will understand. He was, let us say, less willing to be onboard.
As all kids are, he tried all tricks in the book to get his point across. You of course know how this story goes...
Everyone makes some or the other decisions everyday. Be it a life changing decision say, to get married or have kids or marginally life changing ones like where to take your better half for Dinner (Which now that i think of it can also be a major decision whether it a Four Star Restaurant or a roadside eatery).
Everone has their own decision making styles that are inculcated in him/her based on their subconscious thought process, their upbringing, their own innate nature or how they have moulded themselves over the time.
Today we will talk about some of these decision styles or when used in a Project Management Environment.
These different styles are Authoritative, Experienced, Collaborative, Democratic and Laissez Faire.
Let us talk about each approch in detail and decide see which approach suits best in which situations.
Authoritative -
Authoritative Project Management style is when the Project Manager has a decision maker position and tries to coerce or enforce his decisions on the Team without understanding the project situation or team views and thoughts.
This decision making does not necessarily mean he has the experience to understand the situations and has taken a 360 view before coming to a conclusion. This merely means he is in a Authority position and people will listen to him just because of that.
This definitely can lead to many a problematic situations and i have heard enough horror stories where Authoritarian Project Managment has led the project aground because the decision makers were simply not ready to read the signs on the wall.
Long ago, I was a developer in an insurance application project where we had 20 people development team and the Client has enough experience in executing these type of projects. We were developing a policy application system for the client. Since the client had executed multiple projects of this type, he wanted to have a buy-in on some of the decisions wrt what development tools we used, how we did our code reviews and code check-ins to ensure quality, but our Project Manager at that time was jut not ready to listen and did what he thought was right, which led to situations where there was a lot of blame game played and ultimately the client ended up in not renewing the contract at the end of the term and our Executive leadership was left wondering what went wrong and why did we lose the Client.
Experienced -
An Experienced style of Project Management is when you have been there and done that. The project manager has been in the area of project management for a long term and knows how, when and where to execute projects. He knows the nuances, the ins and outs of the project. This is a leader that i would definitely like to follow - well, to an extent.
It is definitely beneficial to the project and gives the team a sense of security when the project manager does and knows his job.
Collaboratative -
This Project Management style intersects with the next one wherein you as a project manager want to decide on something and will take the buy in of all your members as well as your stakeholders. Sometimes this is a win-in style as everyone who has a say will contribute to the decisions and once the team is involved this ensures their commitment and sincere dedication. This is less formal than the democratic style as you may not actually vote for a buyin. This works well for a large scale transformation type projects wherein you have multiple dispersed teams, areas that may be in multiple geographies.
Democratic -
This is similar to collaboration where is the project members take decisions as a team, but with everyone's buy in and voting. Here there is a risk that certain team members - the minority Team members may feel left out. So it is important for the project manager to get them onboarded on the decisions, actively and sincerely listen to their points and those team members get and stay involved. Because if those team members start to lose interest in the project and feel that they are not listened then that may not be beneficial to the project.
Laissez Faire -
Last but not the least 'Laissez Faire' - or i call it the 'Cruise Control'. This is actually a very effective style of management but only works if the team has enough experience and expertise in executing these type of projects. Here the team is self monitored and self led and sort of runs the ship on cruise control.
Basically here the team has been in these situations that the project brings forth many a times. If a project manager decides to execute the project with this style based on team experience then it actually turns out to be a positive as team feels motivated that they have a say in the decisions and a feeling that they are running the project. But this can also negatively impact the project if the team is not experienced or less exerienced in handling these type of projects, they may run the project aground. So the project Manager has to carefully decide and choose looking at the all around situation with his Team.
So all in all, the project manager has to decide how to run a project based on the surrounding internal and external conditions and situations. Sometimes it will make sense to run a project with a particular style and sometimes use a mix of these Styles. You be the judge.
Do let me know your thoughts and comments on the above article
As all kids are, he tried all tricks in the book to get his point across. You of course know how this story goes...
Everyone makes some or the other decisions everyday. Be it a life changing decision say, to get married or have kids or marginally life changing ones like where to take your better half for Dinner (Which now that i think of it can also be a major decision whether it a Four Star Restaurant or a roadside eatery).
Everone has their own decision making styles that are inculcated in him/her based on their subconscious thought process, their upbringing, their own innate nature or how they have moulded themselves over the time.
Today we will talk about some of these decision styles or when used in a Project Management Environment.
These different styles are Authoritative, Experienced, Collaborative, Democratic and Laissez Faire.
Let us talk about each approch in detail and decide see which approach suits best in which situations.
Authoritative -
Authoritative Project Management style is when the Project Manager has a decision maker position and tries to coerce or enforce his decisions on the Team without understanding the project situation or team views and thoughts.
This decision making does not necessarily mean he has the experience to understand the situations and has taken a 360 view before coming to a conclusion. This merely means he is in a Authority position and people will listen to him just because of that.
This definitely can lead to many a problematic situations and i have heard enough horror stories where Authoritarian Project Managment has led the project aground because the decision makers were simply not ready to read the signs on the wall.
Long ago, I was a developer in an insurance application project where we had 20 people development team and the Client has enough experience in executing these type of projects. We were developing a policy application system for the client. Since the client had executed multiple projects of this type, he wanted to have a buy-in on some of the decisions wrt what development tools we used, how we did our code reviews and code check-ins to ensure quality, but our Project Manager at that time was jut not ready to listen and did what he thought was right, which led to situations where there was a lot of blame game played and ultimately the client ended up in not renewing the contract at the end of the term and our Executive leadership was left wondering what went wrong and why did we lose the Client.
Experienced -
An Experienced style of Project Management is when you have been there and done that. The project manager has been in the area of project management for a long term and knows how, when and where to execute projects. He knows the nuances, the ins and outs of the project. This is a leader that i would definitely like to follow - well, to an extent.
It is definitely beneficial to the project and gives the team a sense of security when the project manager does and knows his job.
Collaboratative -
This Project Management style intersects with the next one wherein you as a project manager want to decide on something and will take the buy in of all your members as well as your stakeholders. Sometimes this is a win-in style as everyone who has a say will contribute to the decisions and once the team is involved this ensures their commitment and sincere dedication. This is less formal than the democratic style as you may not actually vote for a buyin. This works well for a large scale transformation type projects wherein you have multiple dispersed teams, areas that may be in multiple geographies.
Democratic -
This is similar to collaboration where is the project members take decisions as a team, but with everyone's buy in and voting. Here there is a risk that certain team members - the minority Team members may feel left out. So it is important for the project manager to get them onboarded on the decisions, actively and sincerely listen to their points and those team members get and stay involved. Because if those team members start to lose interest in the project and feel that they are not listened then that may not be beneficial to the project.
Laissez Faire -
Last but not the least 'Laissez Faire' - or i call it the 'Cruise Control'. This is actually a very effective style of management but only works if the team has enough experience and expertise in executing these type of projects. Here the team is self monitored and self led and sort of runs the ship on cruise control.
Basically here the team has been in these situations that the project brings forth many a times. If a project manager decides to execute the project with this style based on team experience then it actually turns out to be a positive as team feels motivated that they have a say in the decisions and a feeling that they are running the project. But this can also negatively impact the project if the team is not experienced or less exerienced in handling these type of projects, they may run the project aground. So the project Manager has to carefully decide and choose looking at the all around situation with his Team.
So all in all, the project manager has to decide how to run a project based on the surrounding internal and external conditions and situations. Sometimes it will make sense to run a project with a particular style and sometimes use a mix of these Styles. You be the judge.
Do let me know your thoughts and comments on the above article
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