Waking The Sleeping Giant

As the insurance industry grapples with how to survive in a changing business, third-party administrators [TPAs] need to consider the expansion of their services to meet the needs of insureds. These claims administration firms are the industry’s ‘sleeping giant.’ Pursuing the new technology being created by high-tech insurance startups will provide TPAs access to an expanse of accurate historical underwriting information they can use to provide independent, objective quotes for alternative risk insurance products. TPAs have as their focus a mission to be the insurance industry’s service provider of choice. However, while their original responsibilities typically included claims administration, loss control, risk management information systems and risk management consulting, at a time when the corporate insured’s buying habits are being altered dramatically by technology and economics, we expect TPAs to expand their services to include designing and implementing alternative risk insurance products for their clients.