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Helping The Navigators Group Improve Efficiency and Bottom Lines with a Web-based Policy-writing Product

Navigators

  • The Challenge

    The Navigators Group Inc. is an international specialty insurance holding company with insurance company operations, underwriting management companies, and operations at Lloyd’s of London. Headquartered in New York City, The Navigators Group has offices and insurance centers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe. Within the Navigators Group’s specialty products operations, the Personal Line business unit partners with brokers and agency distribution channels across the United States to underwrite insurance for personal umbrella products. Their products include personal umbrella and excess liability on an individual risk basis. Coverage may be provided on up to $10 million for standard buyers and up to $5 million for preferred, non-standard buyers.

    A major goal of the Personal Line business unit was to significantly increase revenues within a 3-year timeframe. In order to achieve this goal, the business unit required a cost-effective, sustainable business model. The Navigators Group teamed with Netsoft USA to design and develop a web-based, policy-writing product called PULSe (Personal Umbrella Liability System) for the brokers, agents, and Navigators underwriters. The PULSe system streamlined and automated all critical aspects of the policy and account lifecycle as well as agency interfaces.

    Before the PULSe system, brokers and agents did not have a web portal or other software solution that integrated with The Navigators Group’s mainframe back office systems. This meant that policy processing and account management transactions at The Navigators Group were mostly manual and paper-based, requiring Navigators underwriter involvement at every stage.

    Because there was no integrated system available to ensure the consistency and accuracy of product premiums, the premium calculation process for quotes and all policy transactions was being driven by the Navigators underwriters. They were also responsible for prospecting activities such as the generation of both premium estimates and formal quotations. Additionally, the Navigators underwriters had to calculate all rates manually, which is not only time consuming but prone to human error and inconsistency.

    It became clear that the Navigators underwriter activities were on the critical path of all key policy transactions. Thus, the business unit’s efforts to achieve an increase in the volume of written policies, thereby ensuring a positive impact on revenue, would impose a significant increase on the workload of the Navigators underwriters. The business unit would have had to increase staffing to adequately support the targeted increase in volume.

    In addition to the bottleneck of underwriter activities, The Navigators Group was missing critical marketing data because only purchased and post-policy purchase transactions were being captured by their mainframe system. Because no software solutions or digitized processes were instituted to support pre-policy purchase transactions, data mining and reporting capabilities were limited. Key data pertaining to the following was difficult to gather and view:

    • KPIs related to prospecting activities such as quotations
    • Lifecycle of a policy from start to finish
    • Client communication and insured account management activities

  • The Solution

    Netsoft USA collaborated with The Navigators Group to design, develop, test, and deploy a web-based policy processing and account management portal called PULSe to be used by brokers, agents, and Navigators underwriters.

    A key component of this collaboration was that Netsoft USA was able to significantly reduce the implementation cycle by developing the product using the proprietary Netsoft Framework. The Netsoft Framework is an integrated collection of development environments, code generators, libraries, reusable components, and tools that have been extensively tested to ensure the reliability and maintainability of our custom solutions.

    PULSe is built on a .NET platform and has a browser-based user interface that utilizes AJAX technology to significantly improve the user experience. The web-based portal leverages web services to integrate with Navigators’ AS400-based mainframe claims system.

    Product Features

    Using an iterative approach, Netsoft USA and The Navigators Group teamed up to successfully develop and deliver all features of the product, including:

    • A wizard-like product that guides all users through the vital steps of the policy lifecycle, including:
      • Quick premium estimation
      • Quote
      • Bind quote
      • Issue policy
      • Endorse policy
      • Renew policy
      • Cancel binder/policy
      • Reinstate policy
    • A “Referral manager” which is comprised of a defined set of business rules that enables the system to evaluate if a user’s work in progress needs to be referred to Navigators underwriters for approval/decline
    • An automated “Premium calculator” with key features, including:
      • Support for premium calculation for multiple product lines
      • Support for computation and simultaneous display of premiums for multiple coverage limits
      • Dynamic computation of state taxes and surcharges based on insured information
      • Inclusion of user-defined surcharges and policy fees which are regulated by predefined rules in the system
    • The capability to track historical communication on an account, with features such as:
      • A document manager that maintains a trail of all documents generated for accounts
      • Notes
      • A transaction history that summarizes the lifecycle of an account
    • A dashboard with a multi-parameter search feature that allows for quick and easy access to the prospect or insured client’s information

  • The Bottom Line

    The PULSe system enabled The Navigators Group’s business partners (the brokers and agents) to issue policies in a secure and controlled fashion. By increasing broker and agent utilization, the PULSe system significantly reduced direct underwriter involvement, thereby alleviating the major bottleneck in processing key transactions. By significantly improving service levels, the PULSe system has enabled The Navigators Group to provide their business partners with a reduced turnaround time for quote generation and policy issuance. Tasks that previously took up to 48 hours are now completed in a few minutes. Additionally, the user interface and documents generated by the new system support the calculation and display of multiple coverage limit options, thereby facilitating up-selling.

    Because the PULSe system has streamlined and digitized manually-intensive, internal business processes, the Personal Line business unit was able to achieve its desired increase in volume without having to increase staffing and other administrative overhead. The PULSe system also integrated seamlessly with The Navigators Group’s existing legacy claims system. This provided new, vital business capabilities while also extending the reach of their back office system without requiring replacement or enhancement.

    The intuitive and consistent wizard-like interface designed for the PULSe system has allowed system users to increase their productivity. The checks and balances built into the system have significantly reduced the necessity for rework/endorsements by minimizing opportunities for manual input errors. In addition, an increase in productivity has been gained by providing a portal that orchestrates the steps of the policy life cycle. Because new users of the PULSe system can be trained more rapidly, initiatives to expand operations have been greatly simplified.

    The PULSe system has provided The Navigators Group with increased visibility into the data pertaining to the lifecycle of a policy. Navigators management can now easily report on key performance indicators (KPIs) that are critical to evaluating their profitability, as well as the productivity of their business partners who act as their front-line sales team. The PULSe system includes enriched data mining capabilities through an automated tool that captures standardized and complete data for transactions through the complete lifecycle of an account and policy.

    The PULSe solution was architected collaboratively between Netsoft USA and The Navigators Group’s technology team so that it can be easily extended to other lines of their business internally, thereby increasing their return on investment. The product was developed utilizing the Netsoft USA Framework which has been proven to reduce total cost of ownership, including maintenance and support.

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