Tokio Marine Europe has recently gone live on the latest phase of a wider program to automate the receipt and processing of risk and accounting bordereau sent from their European branch and agent network, using software designed and built by Scyllogis Consulting.

Germany is the latest branch to implement the automated accounting bordereau and this follows close ‘on the heels’ of the recent implementation of the automated processing of risk and accounting bordereau originating from TME’s Belgian agency.

The programme of work to automate the receipt and processing of risk and accounting information sent by the European branches and agents was instigated to remove complexity, improve efficiency and to make the whole process more scaleable.

During the Insurance Day Summit held over the 19th and 20th May 2009, a number of technology issues emerged on a number of occasions and we have listed below some of the most relevant:

Electronic Trading and Distribution

On day one there was a panel debate on ‘Electronic Trading and Distribution’, followed by Sue Langley’s presentation binging the Summits delegates up to speed on market reform.

The panel discussion on ‘Electronic Trading and Distribution’ focussed primarily on the Lloyd’s Exchange project and one audience member asked  ‘How far will it address the e-trading challenge’? The panel mostly agreed that the project provides a solution to the ‘many-to-many’ data standards dilemma and delivers efficiencies in data transfer.  Scyllogis consequently see this as an issue that more and more companies will be seeking to address and agree that the issue of everybody sending data in different formats is a massive barrier to progressing e-trading.

“Retail insurers focus on customer service, London does not” was the provocative statement made by Sue Langley when opening her presentation on day one of the Insurance Day Summit. Ms Langley felt that Market Reform should not be seen as a cost transfer issue (between underwriters and brokers) but rather as a process efficiency issue meaning driving out costs, which is needed by the market.

ECF was quoted as an example; the objective had to be to get customer their payments more quickly to allow London to compete in what is essentially the main ‘yardstick’ by which people measure insurance customer service.

Why the need for change? Ms Langley said that the broker strategy post Spitzer was to place lower value business into London. The Managing Agent’s strategy was to move into new territories and down the size scale to SME business. 57% of London Managing Agencies had the licenses to operate in the US. 71% plan to collaborate with external parties and 89% of CEOs plan ‘significant’ changes.