Innovative motor insurer implements EDI
Verex Group turns to Orbit UK for bespoke messaging platform to meet Polaris EDI requirements
The complex relationships that are now a necessary part of doing business in the motor insurance sector can place great strains on an organisation’s IT infrastructure if not approached correctly. The need to transmit messages securely and seamlessly in an industry standard format between business partners and suppliers requires both knowledge of EDI and an understanding of the insurance market. Without both of these necessary prerequisites the task can be time consuming and expensive.
The Verex Group work only for vehicle manufacturers providing them with strategic business affinity programmes. Their solutions are market and vehicle manufacturer customer research based, resulting in programmes that are more relevant and able to deliver sustainable profit improvement for vehicle manufacturers.
Verex act as a Managing General Agent with the authority to accept risk for Brit Insurance. Verex had in place an underwriting platform called TIA, but this did not provide them with the ability to generate industry standard Polaris EDI messages for delivery to Brit. Polaris focuses on improving the efficiency and reducing the costs of transacting business involving insurers and intermediaries. It seeks to facilitate the introduction of an electronic marketplace in retail insurance products.
Bespoke solution
Ian Bowen, IT director at the Verex Group explained their situation. “We had to implement a solution quickly but had no real knowledge of EDI. It was also apparent that an off-the-shelf solution would not be appropriate, we would therefore have to work with a partner to develop something that exactly met our specific requirements.”
Fortunately Verex’s insurer, Brit, was able to recommend Orbit UK as an organisation with the capability to meet their requirements. Orbit UK have been providing B2B services to organisations for over 25 years and now look after over 300 customers across different markets but have a particular specialisation in the insurance sector.
“It was apparent from the first meeting at the end of 2009 that they knew what they were talking about,” said Ian. They also understood our underlying business rationale for commissioning the project. Importantly, they could also meet our tight time scales and offered a very cost-effective solution”
John Goodsell, business manager at Orbit UK, takes up the story. “We could see that the development of the solution would be an iterative and consultative process with both Verex and Brit. For this reason we decided not to use our standard managed platform and instead develop a new solution in conjunction with our partner Entity.”
Tight timescales
Work began immediately on developing the solution with particular emphasis given to advising Verex on the information that they would need to extract from their existing underwriting platform in order to populate the necessary Polaris EDI messages.
The requirement meant that new business, mid-term adjustments, cancellations and renewal confirmation messages needed to be sent to Brit using the standard by January 2010. “Between Entity and ourselves we had the technical knowledge and experience to work closely with Verex to ensure they got the system they needed,” said John. “We were able to build them a solution based on a similar implementation that Entity had worked on previously for another insurance company. This ensured we could hit the very tight deadlines.”
Platform to support future growth
“Flexibility was key to the success of the project,” commented Ian. “We were able to work on the development of each of the required EDI messages individually. This was important as it meant that we were able to go live with the new business message while we were still developing and testing the other transactions.”
As a result of this flexibility the new solution was able to go live in January 2010 enabling Verex to deliver the required Polaris EDI messages to Brit. “Orbit UK was very responsive and organised from the outset,” said Ian. “Working in conjunction with Entity they were able to turn things round very quickly enabling us to meet very tight timescales.”
Due to the approach that Orbit UK and Entity took with the development additional changes have been easily made to the solution since the go-live date at the request of both Verex and Brit. “We are working closely with Verex on an ongoing basis to ensure the solution can evolve to meet their requirements,” said John.
“We made the right decision by asking Orbit UK to handle this project for us,” concluded Ian. “I feel confident that we now have in place a flexible and secure EDI system that provides a platform to continue to grow our affinity programmes with motor manufacturers.”
