Systems: Financials / ERP

In the world of Insurance, the use of Financials / ERP systems is often very limited. When you think about it, this is fairly commonsense. In most other industries, the organisation produces a physical product. ERP systems are designed to manage the purchase and sale of products, and all of the bits and pieces that go into that (e.g. Production Planning, Bill of Materials, Asset Management, etc). However in financial services, we deal with complex, intangible products, that are heavy on calculations and business rules. The sales channels are equally complex.

Organisations will always have a General Ledger system, into which the Policy Administration, Claims, and Agency / Commission systems will directly feed GL journals. Other modules may be used if the organisation is sufficiently large - Accounts Payable, Asset Management, and of course Human Resources modules. But the core linkage with the other systems will normally be the GL.