Case Study:
Satyam overhauls antiquated platform
1 March 2006
A leading US-based property and casualty insurance provider was suffering declining levels of new business because the existing platform had become antiquated and as a result their agent/carrier relationship was deteriorating.
The client was looking for a business solution that offers agents increased functionality and a streamlined workflow while reducing operational costs, which would keep them in pace with or exceed competitors automation in personal lines of business.
The client required a:
? Web-based quoting and submission system to enable agents to accurately rate, quote and submit personal lines auto and homeowner business through the Web ? Business rule engine for business logic to encapsulate business rule knowledge in a component that is outside of all other components in an application. And to implement each business rule exactly once, regardless of how many areas of the application are affected ? Caching of the policy information to develop a performance-oriented system that minimises the DB hits, and usage of 'typed datasets' to provide a disconnected model of the data source
Satyam developed this Web-enabled, high-quality and cost-effective business solution with a crunched-time-to-market advantage for the client.
The Personal Lines Quoting and Submission application is developed to suit the client's specific needs and underwriting restrictions on the personal lines business. It is an end-to-end quoting system providing the ability for Quick Quote, Accurate Quote, Non-Bound and Bound Submission. Most importantly, it provides real-time quotes that are 100 per cent accurate.
Insurance companies are dominated by regulations from the state which keep changing from time to time. This often results in rendering insurance software obsolete. This is where the dynamic Business Rule Engine (BRE) comes to the rescue. The BRE leverages the flexibility of insurance software, thereby making it more adaptable to the changing business rules/needs/requirements.
The widespread adoption of XML as a technology capable of driving standardised information sharing makes it easier to integrate insurance products with third-party services which generate ACORD standard forms based on the data provided. The PL Quoting Application leverages this feature in terms of providing Agent to View and Print Accord Application and Proposal Online at any point of time during the quoting and submission process.
With the need for cost-effective business solution with a crunched time-to-market, the PL Quoting Application was developed to re-use their existing legacy-based rating engine, agency management system and other systems by integration through .NET Web services. This has resulted in reusability of already existing components with reduction in effort and cost.
Features of Architecture ? UI handles presentation content. ? The application services component, namely the Display Controller, separates the business services layer from the presentation services layer. The UI code behind sends requests to Display ? Controller to access the lower layers.
? The business rule engine application (BREA) which is outside the boundary of PLQ application (PLQA) is being used by the PLQA by wrapping the BREA using Business Rule Engine Fa?ade (BREF) in the business services layer. There are generic business service components that are being used by the specific business services in BREF. ? The local database of PLQA namely IBM DB2 is wrapped by the low level technical services DB Fa?ade for decoupling the database services. ? PLQA wraps some external applications by using SOAP layer for accessing through Web services. This indicates highly modular approach with low coupling and high cohesion between PLQA and corresponding external applications.
Benefits of PL Quote Application ? Improves operational efficiencies for the agents and the company ? Increases agents' quote rating accuracy ? Grows the agents' personal lines book of business with the company ? Decrease company operating costs and expenses ? Retain application data on all quotes in order to profile both sold and unsold applicants for future product enhancements ? Cost and effort savings in terms of future enhancements and extensibility for different states due to the different features implemented in the application
Business value creation for the client by Satyam ? Quick turnaround time for agents to get Quick Quote, Accurate Quote and submit policy for issuance ? Flexible and modular features to extend this product for multiple states with minimal changes Dynamic Coverages concept for handling any future business requirements of addition/deletion of Coverages across the application with minimal changes.