PIONEERING CONSUMER - CENTRIC INSURANCE TECH

Covéa Insurance PLC is owned by Covéa France, one of the largest insurers in France. The UK arm was founded in 2012 and is something of a laboratory for testing new and innovative approaches in the marketplace. They’re the partner of choice for a number of high-street brands, providing award winning claims handling and customer service to match the reputation of their clients.

Graeme Howard, is Covéa’s Chief Information Technology Officer and the leader of a new era heralded by their micro service based approach to insurance platforms. Howard’s journey is a life lived through insurance and technology. A conservative and traditional industry, often slow and resistant to change, but where even minor change has an enormous impact on the end customer.

Covéa Insurance Plc was officially formed through a 1999 merger of 3 smaller UK insurance companies. Howard’s charge allows for the incubation of Covéa’s most ambitious changes and sees its new platform approach as the launch of a new era in insurance technology.

While applications of this technology are harder in an industry as traditional as insurance, that is precisely why digital

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The convenience of an API for carriers is something Howard is very excited about.

Howard began his career at British Aerospace as an engineer hired through the firm’s graduate scheme as a software engineer. Later, he moved on to Motorola Solutions, helping roll out radio systems across the UK, working his way up into more senior roles including Director roles in architecture and design of software solutions. His last role was designing and implementing a standardised intelligent network management systems to support 350 Managed Service systems across the globe.

Graeme Howard

TITLE: CHIEF INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

INDUSTRY: INSURANCE

LOCATION: ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM transformation here is so meaningful. Covéa Insurance is a young, dynamic and large business with a heritage behind it, as well as the flexibility and evolution of its offering, fit for the digital age.

Fostering innovation in insurance technology

Covéa Insurance’s test and learn approach especially applies to the tech side of things, which helps foster innovation and allows Howard the autonomy to choose partners like Camunda and Dell.

The company has created a new micro services, event driven policy administration platform to support the new Vitality Car insurance product. This platform was created in partnership with Vitality and also utilising some of the insurtech Iotatech components.

That launched in June and a further enhancements to the platform are now in the works.

“Process automation, process definition, Six Sigma [process improvement], and really understanding, how to write business processes are critical” explains Howard. “Creating those sort of cookie cutter approaches, to a blueprint of how we could operate an IT system, in simplistic terms, and then migrate that out across different networks, across the globe to multiple, different channels and hundreds of customers.”

Howard landed his first Chief Technology Officer role at global relocations firm Santa Fe as it embarked on a large-scale digital transformation for its 98 offices across 48 countries. He was later promoted to the global Executive team as CIO as the role out gathered pace and complexity.

“There's a lot of transferable skills,” he says, “but by moving industries, there's a huge amount of learning but equally, coming in new to an industry allows you to challenge some of the previous sacred truths.

After two years at Santa Fe, it was time for a new challenge. “I was looking for somewhere I could really get my teeth stuck into a major transformational role where I could really make a difference. I pretty quickly picked insurance as a sweet

A dynamic board level CTO/ CIO specialising in the delivery of disruptive transformational digital programs and Agile software development to drive organisational growth, performance, operational efficiency and profitability. Passionate about enabling disruptive digital innovation to flourish within the business while ensuring that technology is fully integrated into the business functions that it supports. Thrives in fast paced environments while combining distinctive problem solving and strategic capabilities with proven success in driving execution with customers, through both regional and global teams as well as virtual organisations.