Empowering one of the largest providers of specialty insurance.
About the Client
Founded in 1952, the client is represented by a network of more than 38,000 independent agencies across USA. It is one of the largest offerer of insurance products for manufactured homes, landlord properties, vacant properties, seasonal properties, RVs, motorcycles, off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, boats, personal watercraft, and collectible autos as well as programs for non-standard and mono line auto.
Business Need
Rapid business growth, coupled with an upscaling agency network, meant that the client needed a Policy Management System that could handle all its business needs spread across several locations in the US.
Challenges and Requirements
- Existing COBOL-based system was inefficient and had to be quickly scaled to modern web-based technologies.
- The solution had to support thousands of users across all states of USA.
- The client has nearly two dozen business lines of insurance products.
- Millions of transactions are processed every year.
- Missed deadlines have severe financial ramifications for the client.
- The user scalability requirements range from 50 to 1000+ person offices.
Our Role
We were selected to be accountable for end-to-end delivery of the application. Utilizing our Global Delivery Model, we delivered all the requirements of this complex multi-user, multi-location, highly scalable system over a multi-year timeframe. It involved redesigning the existing real time policy administration screens and business logic from a series of COBOL modules to J2EE middle tier and eliminating Cogen mainframe Customer Information Control System (CICS) from production and test region for Casualty products. The key activities managed that directly led to the success of the engagement included:
- Defining the process for and gathering the business requirements from a diverse population
- Designing and developing the technical architecture frame
- Designing and developing the application
- Developing and managing a complex plan which included – Proof of concept development; Rapid screen prototyping to support business requirements gathering and clarity; Phased functionality delivery plan; Interim application deliverables for high-need areas; and Utilization of over 50 (100 peak) highly skilled systems developers
The resulting system is a user friendly, automated and highly interactive web interface for creating Specialty Casualty product policies. It is designed for independent agents, exclusive agents and employees. It is used to collect the required business data for creating a policy, to generate a premium and for selling policy to a customer. It also supports process of handling all sub transactions like Endorsement, Renewal, Rewrite, Cancellation, and Re Initiate on a policy.
Technologies
J2EE and Web 2.0.
Benefits
Benefits to the client includes:
- The robust architecture helped the client enhance productivity and cut time & costs.
- Manageability of the system was improved because of consolidation and re-engineering of various legacy systems into a single homogenous, Web 2.0 entity. This lowered maintenance costs and ensured lesser downtime.
- All the data residing on disparate systems were combined and put into a single database. Access was also enhanced and all users could get complete access to any data required, any time. Consolidation of data also led to higher customer service levels and reduction in customer query response times.
- The application catered to the needs of the users all over the US and this standardized the administration process.
- Many of the tasks that were earlier being handled manually were automated, presenting significant efficiency benefits to the client’s operations.