"Sometimes, what you want to do is test and learn but to enable that you need a fast model. So we’re trying to say, ‘Go and innovate’ because we’re the fastest model."
- Katie Crook-Davies, co-founder of t+1
t+1, launched by Tabei, is a new actuarial projection model built for insurance and reinsurance companies. Its specially designed algorithm delivers long-term insurance product pricing, financial reporting and capital calculations with speed and accuracy while maintaining transparency. Operating in browser, t+1 hopes to make large tech infrastructure and integration a thing of the past.
In preparation for the launch, Debbie Kennedy, CEO of LifeSearch, Phil Zeidler, co-founder of DeadHappy and Simon Sheldon, former head of transformation at Canada Life joined its advisory board to support the growth of t+1.
Praising the “exciting new development of t+1,” Kennedy said that “actuarial transformation is vital today for insurers and risk carriers.” She believes that by adopting “new technologies that enable faster processing, enhanced analytics and cost-effective modelling, [t+1] will truly empower the actuarial business functions.”
“Tabei has created a model and tool that has the potential to shift the focus from data processing and bring actuarial functions front and centre when it comes to innovation in risk modelling,” she explained.
Likewise, Zeidler said that “the vision with t+1 to accelerate the pace of change and learning in the actuarial space is a core deliverable in pushing the industry forward.” He felt that the advisory board combines a “deep technical understanding of the long-term protection market with the highest levels of determination and ability to transform it - for the good of consumers.”
Describing other data systems as “rigid and sluggish,” Sheldon was thrilled to hear that t+1 “cuts to the heart of these issues with actuarial software developments [to] bring much-needed simplification and agility.”
Since the launch, Protection Reporter has spoken with Katie Crook-Davies about the motivation behind t+1. She said that t+1 was born from a “desire to do better,” because as an industry, “we want to grow but to do that we have to look at new areas of growth and design new propositions that work for different types of customers.” To achieve this goal, (re)insurers have to be agile, respond to market changes, re-design products, and re-price them quickly. In order to do that, a quick actuarial model is vital.
So far, Crook-Davies doesn’t believe other models are achieving this so t+1 was designed “to be that enabler, to enable change and innovation within our industry.” Unlike other actuarial models, t+1 can run in minutes rather than hours which she felt was a “big shift.” t+1 delivers higher levels of agility through its proprietary algorithm; this algorithm is very distinct from anything already on the market and uses the cloud in a slightly different way to rival models. Instead of installing t+1 on local machines which, historically, has restricted the speed of models, t+1 has “real efficiency” through its use of the cloud.
Discussing accessibility, Crook-Davies highlighted that t+1 has been designed to make actuarial modelling “considerably more accessible to a wider pool of people in an organisation.” Again, historically, these models have been complex and complicated to interpret results, so t+1 was developed in hopes of “really simplifying the output of these models and how people use them.”
“We hope that more people in organisations can get involved and make that connection between the customer and how actuarial models are enabling benefits; we truly believe in the integrated approach,” Crook-Davies explained.
Despite t+1 launching less than a month ago, Crook-Davies said that they’re in the process of speaking with a few insurers and hope to get their first clients on board very soon. She believes that the full protection suite can benefit from t+1, but long-term products fit the model best, because “when you’re modelling them, you have to do calculations for the full length of a policy.”
