The Business problem
Our client was a Bermuda based insurer that had offices in
Bermuda and personnel working in multiple remote locations in the
United States.
Their main underwriting and claims data was split and duplicated
across 2 custom applications written in Microsoft Access. One
system was located in Bermuda and some of the information in that
system was duplicated in a second system located in the United
States to allow access to the information for a remote user.
Their challenges were two fold, a difficulty in being able to
provide easy access to their underwriting and claims data to their
distributed user base, and technical difficulties in updating and
reconciling the 2 systems.
The Microsoft Access application was also inherently not a
scalable solution.
Issues Faced and Overcome
Maintaining and converting historical data was problematic and a
huge priority. Our new database design would allow a smooth
conversion of the historic data, once considerable reconciliation
issues were resolved between the two disparate systems. It
was not good enough to simply select one source as each system
contained unique additional data elements that were important to
the business.
Considerable time was spent building reconciliation routines to
automatically match and merge data from the two systems and then
highlight records from each that would require manual intervention.
In order to fine tune this process, multiple test conversions
and reconciliation exercises were performed before the final go
live.
Additional controls were requested by management. The
existing systems had very little functionality to enforce business
rules to ensure data quality. The client was suffering
frequent problems where inaccurate data capture caused
reconciliation and reporting issues during annual reporting
cycles. Significant re-entry and correction of exiting
postings, most of which was hard to track after the fact, was
required.
A number of data validation rules were put in place, which
assisted in data entry by detecting errors early in the process.
The implementation of the new controls had to accommodate the
flexible nature of the insurance being written and the natural
business cycle that could create backdated entries due to their
client business activities. Our resultant solution provided a great
balance of flexibility coupled with a robust audit capability that
allowed for complete tracing of all data entry events.
Client Value Obtained
Our client realized multiple value points with their new
system:
- They had enterprise tools that would provide a secure,
extendable platform for their operations going forward.
- A simplified, single source system from which to provide
accurate reporting and information to their staff and clients
- Data quality was improved through a reduction in data entry
errors and traceability allowed them to learn from mistakes and
improve their processes.
- The new extensible platform allowed the client to start
implementing more structured pricing programs and rating tools that
further helped in their dealings with Reinsurers and meeting
business objectives going forward.