In Holland they have an insurance market borse called the VNAB, which is rather like the London Market bureau. A facility provided by the VNAB is a web based system called eABS that started life as a system to manage claims in a subscription market. It is similar in some ways to ECF, but different in many others. eABS is now being upgraded to include support for an ePlacing module.

Scyllogis has recently been involved in a project to integrate eABS with an organisation’s back office system. This project has been somewhat of an eye-opener in the sense of experiencing an alternative to ECF.

eABS was built by Logica as a Service Enabled web application. The brokers log claims onto the application, either directly or via their own systems by use of web services to create the claims. The insurers can also either interact with the web application directly or, as in the case of our project, utilise web services to deliver all new claims to their own application. There are also web services available to get the latest position on any individual claim, allowing applications to get, in real time, the latest position at any time without needing to continually down load all claim changes in batch.

There are also notification services allowing a work-flow based approach if required.

eABS is used by the brokers to suggest claims adjusters, who the market then need to accept. Once accepted, the adjuster compiles a report which is posted onto eABS. The broker will raise a settlement request and the market then need to accept the request. The actual payment closing is then sent in a more traditional batch message ala London Market. However, the closings message is also being upgraded to be a Service Based solution due in 2010.

We in London always profess London to be the world’s premier insurance market, which I believe it is still, but it does move so slowly in a number of regards. Clearly in Holland the VNAB have pressed ahead with a modern application that the brokers and carriers are enthusiastically using and this has been done using up-to-date technology. It also has a road-map to enable electronic placing, but it has started with the easier aspects of claims and A&S. Maybe London would be well advised to come out of its ivory tower once in a while and have a look around at what the less illustrious markets are up to as there are certainly lessons to be learned out there.

On a totally unrelated topic, I recently visited a company who in my opinion have the most enlightened and effective IT approach that I have come across in London. When one then discovers that the entire IT team, including the CIO, has been recruited from the world of investment banking, the first reaction is: ‘how could they have got where they are without that London Market domain knowledge?’ Well they have. Their view is that they do need some assistance in the more arcane aspects that they can not avoid adhering to, but overall not to be laden down with pre-conceived ideas and also bringing experience of other financial industries has clearly been a great advantage.