Travelers
Data Democratization is a much-ballyhooed aspiration for many corporations these days. Organizations aim to claim the mantle, but for many if not most organizations, data democratization seems to be more a subject of lip service rather than execution and implementation. So, it is of notable interest when one hears about a firm that is undertaking concrete and measurable actions to make data available to business laymen and technical specialists alike. This is precisely what Travelers is executing on today.
Travelers provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals. It is the second-largest writer of commercial property casualty insurance and sixth-largest writer of personal insurance in the United States.
I recently spoke with Mano Mannoochahr, who serves as senior vice president and Chief Data and Analytics Officer for Travelers. Mannoochahr has an ambitious mandate – to make sure that Travelers forges a strong data culture that extends the company’s advantages as a leader in data-driven insurance. Mannoochahr understands the challenge and the importance of building high-quality data processes and practices. He previously served as a Chief Information Officer and Chief Data and Innovation Officer within GE, and before that with John Deere as Global Director, Data, Analytics and Enterprise Architecture.
At Travelers, Mannoochahr is charged with helping the company use data to support 3 enterprise-wide strategic priorities:
1. Extend Travelers’ advantage in Risk Expertise – Insurance is a risk mitigation business, and Travelers is seeking to evolve its existing expertise in risk selection, segmentation and pricing for underwriting purposes;
2. Improve Productivity & Efficiency – Travelers wants to apply its knowledge in analytics and emerging capabilities in artificial intelligence to improve overall business efficiencies and employee productivity – leading to higher business performance;
3. Provide Great Experiences – Travelers is seeking to extend each customer experience by better understanding policyholders and stakeholders in an intimate way. The objective is to enhance the experience of customers, agents, and claimants through data & analytics and provide them with a great experience in all of their interactions.
Mannoochahr calls this “AI-powered service”, noting that Travelers' goal is to “serve customers through whatever channel they prefer”. Commenting on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, he notes the uptick that Travelers has experienced in digital usage as customers, agents and brokers demand greater self-service, leading to a significant increase in online customer registrations and a growing need for access and ease of use.
Travelers has embarked on a what the firm describes as a “data culture journey”. Though the company has a long history of engaging data and analytics by virtue of being an actuarial business with strong underwriting expertise, the firm is looking to broaden its data culture beyond technical specialists to extend across the enterprise – hence democratizing the data. The foundation for this transformation will be modern data and analytics methods, approaches, and next generation technologies.
Travelers recently completed an industry benchmark to understand their strengths as well as opportunities for growth. Coming from a manufacturing background, Mannoochahr knows how important it is to have high-quality raw materials for a physical product. For the insurance industry, data is the raw material. To obtain the highest-quality data, Travelers created a Data Culture Program, where they aim to capture the right data, measure and track the quality of captured data, and understand the data’s relation to core business processes such as underwriting and risk management.
Travelers commitment to the Data Culture Program is embodied through the company’s data-culture training program and its Data Knowledge Map, which visually illustrates the lineage and uses of data across the organization from production on the front lines to consumption in every part of the business. The data culture training program is focused on educating all employees on the importance of data and ensuring they understand its critical role in driving business decisions. Furthermore, Travelers is ensuring the right data is easily searchable and accessible for the 1,500+ data analytics professionals who will be using it to build models and automation to drive higher business performance.
To achieve this outcome, Travelers selected Alation, the enterprise data catalog company, to construct a Travelers-wide data catalog, which is referred to internally as “DataLog powered by Alation”. The data catalog will be available to all Travelers employees and users worldwide. The kickoff program included 100+ initial practitioners from across lines of business who interact with data sets in the catalog – using and enriching the data they own. Travelers also utilized Alation’s RightStart program, which provides dedicated support from Alation consultants to help build and deploy a successful data catalog program and foster a data-driven culture.
Mannoochahr hails the “strong partnership” with Alation, which is resulting in what he characterizes as an “Amazon-like experience for data within Travelers”. Now, non-technical users can look for and find the right data to meet their business needs.
Many organizations aspire to build a data culture through greater democratization of their data across business and technical users. Today, Travelers is systematically establishing the policies, processes, and practices to make data democratization a reality, a goal that few organizations can rightly claim to have achieved.
