How insurers evaluate claims systems in North America P&C software

Celent’s *Claims Systems Vendors: North America P&C Insurance 2024 XCelent Awards, Powered by VendorMatch* was dated March 6, 2024 and authored by Karlyn Carnahan, Nate Golia, Donald Light, and Andrew Schwartz. It frames selection around functionality, customer base, lines supported, technology, and other buying-situation factors. Carriers need a claims system to handle FNOL, coverage validation, assignment, payments, collaboration, litigation support, catastrophe spikes, and links to policy, billing, document, fraud, and digital channels.

What Celent is really measuring

The North America report was issued as an authorized reprint excerpt prepared specifically for Majesco, while Celent retained full control of the content. It was also part of a broader 2024 XCelent Awards, Powered by VendorMatch series that included EMEA and Asia Pacific claims-system editions, with the EMEA reprint dated March 6, 2024 and the APAC reprint dated February 29, 2024.

More than 40 North American P&C insurers provided evaluations of a claims system sold by one of the vendors in the reports, Celent states on its *Navigating the North American Claims Landscape* page. Celent’s North American claims admin system review is biennial.

How serious carriers build the shortlist

A disciplined claims shortlist starts with operating model, not brand name. Tier-1 carriers need to know how much claims complexity the platform will own, how much will sit in surrounding systems, and how the deployment model fits their cloud posture. Mid-market buyers care just as much about speed and configurability, especially when they are moving off older claims administration stacks without rebuilding every downstream workflow.

The next gate is claims depth. A platform has to prove it can support FNOL intake, coverage validation, assignment routing, payments, adjuster collaboration, and litigation handling without forcing brittle custom code at every turn. Functionality maps directly to a carrier’s operating pain: a system that looks clean in a demo can still fail when catastrophe volume spikes or when a complex bodily injury claim moves into legal review.

Integration fit comes right after that. North American carriers compare how a claims platform connects with policy administration, billing, document management, fraud tooling, and digital channels. API readiness, workflow depth, and configuration choices matter because claims teams do not want the platform to become a dead-end island inside a larger operating stack.

Where the major platforms tend to fit

Guidewire ClaimCenter, Duck Creek Claims, Majesco Claims, and Snapsheet repeatedly surface in North American claims conversations. Carriers use these systems to solve different operating-model problems.

• Guidewire ClaimCenter is associated with very large, complex carrier environments where scale, process depth, and integration discipline matter most.

• Duck Creek Claims and Majesco Claims are central in mid-market and transformation programs where configurability and implementation path are central to the buying decision.

• Snapsheet is prominent in more cloud-first and digital-claims conversations, especially when the carrier wants a different operating model around automation and customer experience.

Why vendors care so much about Celent’s awards

On April 9, 2024, Guidewire announced that ClaimCenter won seven XCelent Awards and was named a Luminary in all four regional reviews of P&C claims systems. Majesco announced on March 7, 2024 that Majesco Intelligent Claims for P&C received Luminary Provider recognition and the XCelent Advanced Technology Award in Celent’s Property/Casualty claims report. Duck Creek also promoted XCelent award wins in multiple categories.

A practical evaluation checklist for North American buyers

A claims RFP gets sharper when it mirrors those criteria. The strongest carrier teams pressure-test five things in sequence:

1. Scope of coverage: Which lines does the system support natively, and where does it rely on add-ons or heavy customization?

2. Claims depth: Can it manage FNOL, assignment, payments, collaboration, and litigation support cleanly under real volume?

3. Integration posture: How well does it connect to policy, billing, document, fraud, and digital channels, and how much integration work is required to make it usable?

4. Implementation risk: What does the vendor’s customer base look like, how many references are available, and how closely do those references resemble the carrier’s size and complexity?

5. Technology and ecosystem: Is the architecture aligned with the carrier’s cloud direction, and does the surrounding partner ecosystem reduce delivery risk rather than add to it?