9DECEMBER - 2017engineering team built a proprietary system that maps customer data from their application flow­field-by-field, to over 3,000 PDFs, one per carrier per state­and automates the process of collecting the applicant's signature via DocuSign. PolicyGenius also ingests carriers' rate sheets through nightly batch processes or by crawling pages on the carriers' websites. While I applaud PolicyGenius' scrappiness, it was a shock to discover that the insurance carriers, many of whom are large, highly-profitable companies, haven't taken the time to build APIs that allow programmatic submission of applications or retrieval of rate sheets. Most carriers rely on brokers and agents to originate policies, so they have an incentive to streamline the process. What's more, when applications are submitted as PDFs, the carriers have to parse or transcribe the content into their own system, which requires custom scripts or human effort. The net effect is the same: data flows from PolicyGenius' website to the insurance carrier's database. But rather than If Web 3.0 is all about data, then allowing data to flow securely should be a top priority for every companyallowing authorized third-parties like PolicyGenius to submit data directly and programmatically into their database, this convoluted flow functions like a pseudo-API. Instead of HTTPS POST, the application data is transferred via email. Instead of JSON, the data payload resides in a PDF form. APIs have four key advantages over ad hoc data flows:Security: APIs require third-parties to authenticate before transacting, ensuring that only authorized partners can interact with key systems. This prevents unauthorized access and helps identify bad actors that are using unauthorized techniques to submit or extract data (e.g. scraping website content).Data Integrity: Processes that involve transcribing data into forms are inherently error-prone. Data can be mapped to the wrong field, forms can get lost in transit and it can be hard to catch errors. Well-designed APIs use HTTP protocols to alert users about transmission errors, data loss, and incomplete or incompatible values.Human Effort: Most non-programmatic data flows require some degree of human effort. For example, the processes of uploading, transcribing, or error-checking documents. Well-designed APIs should eliminate the need for human involvement and allow systems to interact directly and programmatically.Architectural Hygiene: Building APIs forces companies to ensure that data structures make sense and provide clean interfaces for submitting and extracting data. In many cases, this results in better internal systems architecture and faster development going forward.If Web 3.0 is all about data, then allowing data to flow securely should be a top priority for every company, even those in traditional industries like insurance. Not only is the recent wave of innovation in InsureTech creating exciting new businesses, it's also nudging incumbents toward an API-driven future that will benefit companies and consumers alike. Parker Barrile
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