Nestor Lopez is the CIO at ProSight, leading enterprise information technology strategy and operations. Previously, he held various leadership roles at CNA, Fireman’s Fund, and General Electric. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico with a degree in industrial engineering and holds an Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology from the MIT Sloan Executive Education program. He spoke with Novarica in late 2020.
What are your top priorities for the next 6-12 months?
Our top priorities include continuing our digital transformation, optimizing business functions through digitization and automation, and scaling our technology platform. Our digital transformation is focused on improving the customer experience for our insureds and our retail brokers. We’re also digitizing internal processes to drive operational efficiencies, primarily for underwriting operations and claims. As part of this process, we’re exploring better ways to embed data and analytics into our operations.
And finally, we’re continuing to scale and optimize our technology platforms. This includes retiring platforms we’re no longer using, deploying ongoing updates to the technology stack, and building a highly reusable API platform. We’re also closely evaluating the costs of maintaining our platform, which includes having a shared understanding with our partners to be as efficient as possible.
What do you think has been the biggest impact of the pandemic environment on your technology strategy?
It has underscored the importance of an efficient and scalable technology platform, and it has accelerated the pace of our digital transformation. We’re finding new opportunities to enable more self-service and straight-through processing. Internally, we’re also focusing on digital collaboration which is critical to operating successfully in a remote environment.
The pandemic environment has also reinforced the importance of data security. We’ve continued to mature our cybersecurity program and practices in which all employees play a critical role.
How has the relationship between IT and other business units evolved over the past year?
I think it has strengthened our relationships with our business partners and has led to closer interactions with them. Working from home has led to an increase in adoption and a greater familiarity with our technology solutions. It has also resulted in an increased demand for automation, virtual collaboration tools, and productivity metrics.
In addition, there’s more recognition of the digital and cloud infrastructure investments that we have made, and the role IT plays in making the organization more efficient and agile.
What do you see as some of the biggest challenges ahead?
A key challenge is how we leverage technology to best position the company for success in a post-crisis world. And, how we maintain the rapid rate of change at the scale and speed that’s now required. I see exciting opportunities ahead. We’re primarily focusing on maintaining the momentum of our digital transformation and optimizing the technology platform, to enable agility and operating efficiency so we’re well-positioned to handle business post-recovery without increasing operating costs.
Another challenge is how you keep employees motivated in an extended pandemic environment, managing the “virtual fatigue.” This fall, we hosted activities such as optional team gatherings outside with masks and social distancing, to help maintain the social connections and our culture.
Which emerging technologies are you most interested in and excited about?
We’re currently focusing on bringing more third-party data to our online submission intake capabilities through APIs. This will improve the completeness and enrich the data gathered during the new business submission process and improve the end-user experience.
I’m intrigued about the ways in which AI and machine learning, new data sources, computer vision, and video analytics will enable continuous underwriting – helping improve the customer experience, claims outcomes, risk selection, and pricing.
I’m also keeping an eye on the potential of cloud native and low-code/no-code platforms to improve speed to market. These technologies have real potential to positively impact the industry.
How have you and your team leveraged the Novarica relationship?
We’ve had a relationship with Novarica for several years, and I’ve found it very beneficial. We value the research and insights on trends, best practices, and emerging technologies. This year, I’ve especially appreciated their virtual events to hear the perspective of industry peers during this time of rapid change. In addition, we were recognized by our peers on the Research Council with an Impact Award this year, which was an exciting milestone in our transformation journey.
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