Insurance companies who are using IT or business process outsourcing (BPO) are gaining significant business benefits, according to research by IT service provider CGI Group Europe.
The findings also showed a lack of understanding amongst those insurers with no experience of outsourcing.
Around 26% of respondents use IT outsourcing and 105 comments were made commending its benefits. A similar proportion was found for BPO.
CGI Group Europe says this is an "overwhelming endorsement" for both kinds of outsourcing.
Flexibility was listed as a key benefit, as was making the organisation more cost-effective. Other benefits included making organisations more competitive, the need for less capital investment and helping organisations to cut costs.
Managing director Gavin Chapman commented: "A significant finding for us was the low level of knowledge on outsourcing. When the whole sample was asked in which areas of the business they considered outsourcing to be most effective a surprising 50% said they did not expect BPO to be effective at all and 35% stated the same for IT outsourcing.
"When this is compared to the actual advantages experienced from those that have used outsourcing, we can assume this finding comes from the insurers that have no experience of it themselves."
The report, Issues Affecting IT Deployment in the UK Insurance Sector, was carried out by independent research company Metrica, with 100 major UK-based general insurance and life & pension companies.
