JMR Software has over 30 years’ experience in implementing insurance administration systems (IAS). Leveraging this wealth of experience, JMR has developed a next-generation IAS. The main aim was to drastically reduce the shortcomings of previous generation systems, which are now legacy systems, and to utilise the latest technology and trends. This culminated in CloudCover IAS, a web and cloud-based system with unparalleled flexibility, reduced cost of ownership and time to market.
JMR Software’s CloudCover IAS is helping South African insurers, other African insurers and global insurers to transform operations and boost efficiencies, enabling a competitive advantage. CloudCover is a full end-to-end policy life cycle administration system, from quotes to claims or cancellations, and everything in between.
Susan van Zyl, Head of Sales and Marketing at JMR Software, says: “All those years of implementing predominantly legacy insurance administration systems highlighted several factors that we felt needed addressing. These include long implementation timelines, dependencies on specific technologies and platforms and complicated business processes with lots of manual interventions. We wanted to build on what we had learnt worked well and radically replace what did not stand the test of time.”
“We decided to develop our own insurance administration system, one that was built on modern technologies and that would be more agile. One of our main objectives was to reduce implementation timelines from years to months. Our other objective was to make the system highly configurable to allow clients to keep up with constant regulatory changes and to launch new products quickly.”
The end result is a fully automated system that can accommodate multiple products in one sub-system. This means that long- and short-term products, policy administration and claims can all be run on the same system. Van Zyl clarifies that short-term insurance includes personal and commercial lines, whereas long-term insurance includes individual and group insurance products.
Another advantage of JMR Software’s insurance administration system is that it includes a document management module and a communication module for SMS and e-mail in the same system, meaning that customers don’t need to deploy separate systems. “This is key from both an insurer and regulatory point of view, as they need to track clients’ documents and track whether they received and opened that document.
“As data migration experts, we decided to also include our data migration framework, BITSHIFT, into our CloudCover IAS system. Our data migration framework, together with our data migration service, enable our clients to move from legacy systems or their current platform seamlessly and without the risks associated with a data migration.”
She explains: “It’s taken for granted that an IAS will work as intended, but the capability and expertise behind that IAS are the key selling points. With our solution, you don’t have to rely on an IT person or developer to launch a new product. It’s designed to be user friendly and highly configurable so that anyone with the right skills can configure the system or make a change.”
With legacy systems, when someone wants to generate a report, make a change or introduce a new product, they have to put in a request to their developers, resulting in what can be a lengthy project.
Van Zyl says: “With things moving at such a fast pace today, introducing new systems and products needs to happen at an equally rapid pace so the client can take them to market a lot faster in order to be competitive.”
She highlights that the system isn’t just for insurance businesses. “Brokers, call centres and policyholders can use the system. It’s also mobile-friendly.”
To learn more about JMR Software’s IAS, go to https://52.18.42.110/policy-administration-system/