Service provider and business software maker Accenture has extended its Life Insurance Platform suite of offerings with a cloud-based interface that covers a lot of ground.

The new component unveiled this week supplements the company’s existing portfolio in three main areas. Firstly, it features a ‘decision engine’ that aims to automate certain key process by applying analytics: the tool can identify underwriting risk more accurately, as well as the need for manual intervention from the insurer, and also takes care of request handling to some degree.

The second function is an underwriting workbench, which is a fully-featured collaboration platform that streamlines internal information sharing. And it does more than just allow workers to edit each other documents, too. This particular part of the software aggregates all the data associated with a case on a single pane of glass, including the various actions that need to be taken by a representative.

Last but not least, Accenture’s new offering expands on the whole data angle a bit further with third party system integration. The solution leverages ACORD-standard messaging and is designed to fit right in the typical insurance client’s IT environment, according to the release.

“Life insurance and annuity carriers today face intensified pressures to reduce costs and improve efficiencies across the full policy lifecycle in a way that drives market advantage,” said Mitchel F. Ludwig, Product Line Lead of Accenture Software for life insurance. “Software applications can help insurers achieve high performance in this environment by streamlining the new business and underwriting process, while better analyzing risk and lowering the cost of issuing policies.”

The cloud is starting to play an increasingly bigger role in not only the insurance industry but also healthcare. For example, one company has proved that AWS can be a very valuable research component.