General Insurance Article - A virtual actuarial workspace to help reduce IT costs

 The online workspace, powered by Microsoft Azure, overcomes the limitations of legacy IT by providing insurers with an agile, alternate environment to host and manage their Willis Towers Watson software and supplementary actuarial programmes. Through vPlace, software is enabled to run at peak performance, supporting insurers’ ability to effectively respond to fluctuating industry pressures, maximising their software investment.

 Stephen Hollands, SaaS Global Product Leader at Willis Towers Watson said, “Shorter reporting timelines are pushing insurers to do more in less time and traditional on-premise infrastructures are struggling to remain fit for purpose. Having a virtual workspace in the cloud, supported by our risk and actuarial software experts, allows insurers more time to respond to the changing needs of the business without having to spend huge sums on purchasing, updating and maintaining onsite infrastructure.”

 Jonathan Silverman, director, business development at Microsoft Corp. said: “To expand computing capacity enough to meet regulations and compete in the market, insurers that rely on on-premises technology will have to invest heavily in infrastructure which may quickly become obsolete. By leveraging high performance compute capacity in Microsoft Azure, vPlace gives insurers a solution for their risk and actuarial software challenges that is both flexible and cost-effective.”

 vPlace can accommodate a range of Willis Towers Watson’s risk and actuarial software products and other supplementary actuarial programmes to enable them to work seamlessly together. The consultancy and leading software vendor’s RiskAgility Financial Modeller (FM) is the first of its actuarial software products to be hosted on vPlace, with other products scheduled to join over the coming year.