By John Lucker, principal, Deloitte Consulting

As insurance IT organizations prepare for all that 2009 has in store, many competing priorities vie for attention - some address core technology while others address critical business functions. A key theme across the board will likely be to do more with less.However, the old but often downplayed adage that "it's better to know what you don't know" should bring the importance of information to the forefront and increase the sense of urgency for insurance organizations to be more data driven. It is not the rare CIO who feels that perhaps too much attention has been paid to technology and that more focus should be on information, the middle word of their title.

This has been talked about for a number of years as a key priority for future focus by insurance IT organizations. 2009 should be the year to get it done.

While most companies are already data rich, many more need to be information smart and the very best should become brilliant with insights. Accomplishing this doesn't necessarily require a large new IT spend because for many companies the infrastructure costs have already been incurred. What is needed next is more investment in training, carving out time to learn, and challenging business and IT personnel to work together to make their insurance data sing.

Data centricity and a heightened emphasis on turning data into intelligence and action are skill sets that not enough insurers have mastered, and they need to, badly. While many companies have a few staff, mostly IT professionals trained to operate BI tools, few have turned the ability to analyze the vast array of data available into an organizational paradigm. This paradigm will allow companies to better understand the marketplace, their customers, producers, the risks they face, product pricing and the multitude of other levers that insurance companies must manage to ensure success.

Far too much time is spent cranking out the same old style of management reports or lists and rosters of information based on ad-hoc tactical requests. Sure there are pockets of true data analysis at most companies, but what is needed most is a holistic shift, a shift of corporate focus, a shift to have all aspects of an organization more engaged with its data. And IT organizations are the best equipped to do the missionary work to make this happen.

Assuming progress can be made in the coming year, insurers can begin to realize many benefits from their attention to becoming more data driven and focused on advanced analytics - real demonstrable, tangible, quantifiable benefits can be achieved. By better blending fact-based decisioning with the inevitable art of the business, objectivity and creativity can be blended with a new pragmatism. And there are many pragmatic opportunities for insurers, for example:

* more market responsive, creative and rapid product modification and development * more granular precision pricing and segmentation * more proactive engaged claims management * more inquisitive and results oriented fraud detection and control * more collaborative and service oriented producer management * more accurate business, market, and financial forecasting * more responsive and meaningful customer contacts and service * more insightful customer acquisition, management, retention and expansion * more unique and intelligent communication with analysts and regulators

The possibilities are only limited by a company's imagination and its willingness and ability to take data driven learning from insight to results. If great progress could be made in 2009, insurance IT organizations could do much to enhance their value in their companies and assure a greater role for leadership and involvement in key business initiatives in the years ahead -- the core objective being to keep IT strategically relevant and a key contributor to corporate success.The old but often downplayed adage that "it's better to know what you don't know" should bring the importance of information to the forefront and increase the sense of urgency for insurance organizations to be more data driven.