Financial services

Case Study:

Ark Syndicate Management

3 April 2008

Ark Syndicate Management needed a compliant, agile underwriting system that could be supplied in a short timeframe. Northdoor's N-DEX Suite provided the answer, with an award-winning implementation.

Lloyd’s-based underwriting agency Ark Syndicate Management was launched in March 2007 by Aquiline Capital Partners, Whittington Group, Swiss Re and Lehman Brothers Co-Investment Partners.

The decision by investors to capitalise the new syndicate and managing agency was reached in January 2007, and Ark gained approval from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Lloyd’s Franchise Board to write policies from 1 April 2007.

“We were under a great deal of pressure to be compliant and ready for business by Easter 2007, traditionally a very busy underwriting period,” says Nick Bonnar, director of underwriting for Ark Syndicate Management. “A critical step was getting FSA and Lloyd’s approval of our underwriting systems, and of course we are not IT people.”

Ark needed to quickly choose, implement and configure an affordable, scalable IT system that was reliable, yet flexible enough to support the company in whichever directions its future took it. It decided to investigate third-party software offerings and city-based IT support companies.

Since the work would be done prior to Ark’s launch, any solution provider had to recognise the possibility that any plans would be shelved. The supplier also needed to be completely trusted to keep details of the new agency confidential.

Ark chose N-DEX Suite, a specialised, Windows-based underwriting application for claims messaging and signing from Northdoor. “We chose N-DEX Suite because it is already well proven in the London market, and Northdoor was confident it could get us up and running quickly,” says Bonnar. “The solution was customisable to fit Ark’s specific start-up and ongoing needs, and also cost-effective for a smaller syndicate, while also being scalable.”

A further factor in the decision was that Ark could own its own copy of N-DEX Suite, rather than licensing the software. Given the critical nature of the software to Ark, this would give it greater control than licensing a packaged solution owned by a vendor. Because the solution is Windows-based and fully documented, Ark could contract development out to any suitably qualified support company or IT professional.

N-DEX Suite can be hosted by the customer or at a dedicated hosting site. “We wanted the solution to be hosted, managed and supported by an external provider, enabling us to focus on underwriting insurance risks rather than running IT,” says Bonnar. “For us, Northdoor had all the answers.”

Northdoor customised and implemented the solution in just 11 weeks, and authorised Ark employees now access the system from anywhere via a Web browser. N-DEX Suite handles Ark’s policy and claims administration, credit control and transaction processing. It also provides a view of business performance and risk via Northdoor’s data warehouse.

Northdoor also provides Ark with long-term IT support, covering application and systems management as well as interfaces, data services, the internal IT infrastructure and contingencies for disaster recovery.

Ark is growing rapidly in a dynamic market, so its systems need to be flexible. For example, it is currently considering the enabling of electronic placing and a higher level of workflow management to improve control and service standards.

“We have been able to visualise our future business operations and plan suitable infrastructures in advance,” says Bonnar. “Northdoor has the expertise in the London market to help us identify necessary systems developments and then to schedule and deliver them.”

In just a few months since start-up, Ark has grown from ten people to 55, using training services from Northdoor to quickly bring newcomers up to speed with N-DEX Suite. It has expanded into new insurance classes, and has proven that Northdoor can accommodate growth on time and on budget. The project has also won Northdoor the Managed Service Solution prize at the European IT Excellence Awards.

“Northdoor has assisted in clearly defining our development requirements and delivering against these- we have been very impressed with the insurance knowledge of its consultants,” says Bonnar. “As we expand and extend into new classes, we are finding that N-DEX Suite is highly flexible in supporting us as an agile, competitive agency.”