In 2016, Gain Compliance identified that the market for statutory financial reporting software was woefully underserved.
The options that insurance carriers had to fulfill their statutory financial reporting requirements were, by modern standards, pretty terrible.
Even worse, none of the vendors was making an authentic effort or investment to better serve their customers.
By all measures, the software was fundamentally unchanged over the past decade or more. It’s an old story about why vendors don’t innovate on their current products. Quite simply, it eats into the bottom line.
But, why didn’t anyone new enter the market?
There are a few reasons:
- The stat. reporting domain is challenging: before you can build software, you first need to master the many details of an arcane and intimidating world.
- The software itself presents technical challenges: stat. reporting incorporates a rich and complicated data model.
- Certification by the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) is required to even offer a solution in the market.
- This is mission-critical, compliance software which presents business challenges. It must be functional, accurate, and complete before launch.
So, any new entrant not only has to be incredibly detail-oriented and technically adept, but also be very, very patient. This market suffered from monumentally high barriers to entry. Consider this fact: prior to Gain, the last time the NAIC licensed a new vendor was 2001.
It’s a long, hard slog to succeed.
Then Gain Compliance came along. But this is hardly a story of overnight success.
The challenges to this market were very much real: in fact, it took from Gain’s founding in June, 2016 to January, 2020 before we had a product to support our first Annual Statement/March 1st filing.
Fast forward to 2023, and Gain is thriving.
When I ask prospects what they think of their current legacy solution, the (very) common answer is:
“Nobody loves their stat filing software.”
Gain has made it our mission to change this.
Yes, we realize that the set of requirements and tight deadlines for the filings themselves will always be inherently challenging.
At the same time, well-designed software should be part of the solution. It should assist users with an intuitive interface, contextual educational resources, a platform for collaboration, and extensive cross-checks to ensure data quality and compliance.
So.. how are we doing?
Very well, actually. Consider the following. Since Gain was founded in 2016::
- The top three vendors by market share all sold to large software conglomerates.
- One product (TCP) was discontinued. As of today, five legacy products remain.
- All of the five remaining software solutions are losing market share.
- This leaves one vendor – Gain – that is growing, and growing fast. Gain now supports over 1,000 filing entities per quarter.
Most importantly – Gain’s customers are realizing great value and having a great experience.
Our top source of new leads? Happy customers.
It turns out that it is possible to love your stat. filing software.
Make sure to check out our other the blog posts, and follow Gain Compliance on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.