No. 03 · The observatory
Insurance policy administration
A policy platform mismatched icare’s workflow for years. Fixes came in 2023.
- Status
- Open
- Rank
- 34 of 35 in the atlas
- Scored
- 2026-10-05
- Report
- Back to the study
- Rank
- 34 of 35, published score 42.0
- Scoring date
- 2026-10-05, reported 2026-10-09
- Buyable
- $2.3B buyable midpoint, $1.4B to $3.8B recorded legacy spend
- Factors
- size 3, pain 2.2, AI fit 4, lock-in 3.5, crowding 4.3
- Coverage
- none recorded; AI-native challenger recorded
Insurance policy administration
Ranked 34 of 35 at 42 out of 100.
Policy administration systems of record for insurance carriers.
What the evidence says
The checked evidence corroborates bounded policy-admin pain. An ombudsman investigation documents icare’s platform misfit. Wage declarations went unprocessed for years after a 2017 takeover. Software fixes arrived only in 2023.
Providers
The card checked three incumbents: Guidewire, DXC and Sapiens. Guidewire reports about 500 customers behind roughly 570 insurance brands. DXC reports a 1,000-plus customer-and-community figure. Sapiens reports over 600 insurers across more than 30 countries. The scopes and periods differ. No ranking is supported.
Socotra is the recorded challenger. A vendor release reports If P&C self-implemented an embedded product in five months. The AI-native label is vendor self-reported.
Sources:
- If P&C Insurance Goes Live on Socotra With Embedded Car-Sharing Product
- Socotra News & Press: Latest Updates and Announcements
- Socotra Becomes First Insurance Core to Release Generally Available AI - Socotra
- Guidewire Software, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2025
- Life & Wealth | DXC Technology
- About | Sapiens
- NSW Ombudsman
The pain
icare took over 55,000 legacy hindsight adjustments in 2017. Its platform’s preset parameters did not align with the required workflow.
Adjustments were invisible to underwriters and went unprocessed. icare knew of issues from 2017; systematic remediation began in June 2025.
Sources:
Events
icare adopted Guidewire Policy Centre amid a 2017 statutory takeover. Enhancements came in 2023; full identification of affected policies began 2025.
Sources:
Limits
All retained pain evidence is one ombudsman report on one operator. The excerpts are icare’s explanations reproduced by the ombudsman. Organisational causes are recorded alongside the software misfit.
Sources:
- Guidewire Software, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2025
- Life & Wealth | DXC Technology
- About | Sapiens
- Socotra Becomes First Insurance Core to Release Generally Available AI - Socotra
- If P&C Insurance Goes Live on Socotra With Embedded Car-Sharing Product
- Socotra News & Press: Latest Updates and Announcements
- NSW Ombudsman
In their words
did not align with the required workflow
Source: icare explanation reproduced by NSW Ombudsman, undated
they were not visible to the Underwriters and consequently not processed
Source: icare explanation reproduced by NSW Ombudsman, undated
Relevant workflows
6 recorded openings. A missing mapped round is a coverage gap, not an empty field.
| Workflow | Index | Labour | AI use | Core | Mapped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Policyholder and agent service contacts insurance-policy-admin:wf-service-inquiries | 256 | $62.1B | 43% | non-core | 2 |
| Risk evaluation, pricing and referral insurance-policy-admin:wf-underwriting | -15 | $5.9B | 17% | non-core | 4 |
| Premium billing, collections and commissions insurance-policy-admin:wf-billing-commissions | -327 | $11.5B | 62% | touches core | 0 |
| Product, rate and rule changes and regulatory reporting insurance-policy-admin:wf-product-config-reporting | -390 | $3.7B | 47% | touches core | 0 |
| Policy changes, cancellations, reinstatements and renewals insurance-policy-admin:wf-policy-servicing | -599 | $7.9B | 14% | touches core | 2 |
| New business intake and policy issuance insurance-policy-admin:wf-new-business | -644 | $9.8B | 12% | touches core | 4 |
Recorded providers
Provider claims carry their recorded kind and citations. Undisclosed figures stay undisclosed.
| Provider | Products | Parent | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guidewire Software | Guidewire PolicyCenter, Guidewire InsuranceSuite, Guidewire InsuranceNow | unknown | cl-pol-gw-rel (inference) source cl-pol-m-gw-500 (observation) source |
| DXC Technology | Assure Life & Wealth, Assure Ingenium, Assure Cyberlife, Assure wmA, Assure Life+ | unknown | cl-pol-dxc-rel (inference) source cl-pol-dxc-inc (inference) source cl-pol-m-dxc-1000 (observation) source |
| Sapiens International Corporation N.V. | IDITSuite for Property & Casualty, CoreSuite for Life & Pensions | unknown | cl-pol-sap-rel (inference) source cl-pol-sap-inc (inference) source cl-pol-m-sap-600 (observation) source |
Recorded inputs
Raw scored inputs exactly as frozen. Values and units keep their recorded definitions.
| Factor | Input | Value | Count | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pain | keep_alive_share | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
| pain | backend_failure_share | 0.12 | 50 | 2 |
| pain | app_rating_inverted | 4.390883548387097 | 31 | 1 |
| pain | failed_rate | 0.5 | 8 | 3 |
| pain | s3_grade | weak | 1 | 3 |
| pain | mean | 2.25 | unavailable | 2.2 |
| lockin | award_duration_months | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
| lockin | noncompetitive_share | unavailable | 1 | unavailable |
| lockin | replacement_duration_months | 35.5 | 8 | 2 |
| lockin | regulator_approval | true | 1 | 5 |
| lockin | mean | 3.5 | unavailable | 3.5 |
| crowding | ai_native_traction | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| crowding | funding_per_billion | 272400590.7122495 | 12 | 5 |
| crowding | yc_2024_plus | 9 | 9 | 4 |
| crowding | mean | 4.333333333333333 | unavailable | 4.3 |
| size | users_midpoint | 5480 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | buyers_mid | 5876.5 | unavailable | unavailable |
| size | midpoint | 2272388611.1314673 | unavailable | unavailable |
| ai_fit | mean | 3.8276 | 12 | 4 |
| ai_fit | unanswered | unavailable | 0 | unavailable |
Recorded sources
29 recorded citations. Each link lands on the sources catalogue.
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