Real-time policy change finds a home

A software provider announces an innovation that allows brokers to send policy changes for homeowner and personal property lines to their carriers in real time.

iter8, a software solutions provider to the insurance industry, has announced that real-time policy change for personal property lines is live at Unica Insurance.

Real-time policy change happens when a broker starts and ends a policy change transaction within his or her broker management system (BMS).

Policy changes are made within the BMS, uploaded to the insurance company, and then integrated to the core carrier systems. The policy records are updated in the carrier’s policy administration system, and then returned to the BMS for final approval and update.

“So is this the real real-time?” David Gallagher, vice president of iter8, said of the solution. “Darn right. It is real time because they [brokers] can go into the BMS, they can make the change, they can send it to Unica, Unica can process it and validate that change and push it back into the BMS.”

iter8 has worked with Keal Technology’s sigXP and keal connect BMS solution, which is compliant with the guiding technology principles established by the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) and Centre for the Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) standards.

Paul Reed, chief technology officer at iter8, indicated to Business Insurance that once other BMS systems – for example, TAM or Epic, through WARP – produce policy change messages that conform to IBAC’s guiding technology principles, iter8 will also be able to plug these systems into their real-time policy change solution.

“This is another critical piece in our efforts to deliver an advanced technology solution to our brokers,” according to Katherine Evans, CFO at Unica Insurance. “Our brokers spend a great deal of time and effort in processing policy changes. This represents a significant improvement for them and will result in savings in dollars and time.”

Unica completed real-time policy change for personal automobile in October 2012.

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