Xchanging Forum praised by market

The annual Service & Innovation Market Forum held by business process, procurement and technology services provider, Xchanging, was well received by attendees who praised the company’s presentation and future plans.

Over 200 industry professionals attended the event, describing the presentation as “excellent” and praising the speakers for “approaching everything in the right way”.

The event, which highlighted innovation and investment as key points, focused on aligning the London market.

“Former differences between the Company and Lloyd’s markets, and between the global and local markets are disappearing,” said Max Pell, managing director at Xchanging UK Insurance Services. “Many of our customers are now demanding single standard industry platforms that support their business in one consistent way globally.”

Adrian Guttridge, executive director, Xchanging Insurance Services said: “Global and London needs can be aligned and we aim to support the market with a technology path that is simple in concept, sensible in risk, straightforward in priority and supportive of its much longer term global aims.”

Xchanging has spent £30 million in recent developments, including Netsett, X-presso, Xuber, and Fees Direct+.

Rob Myers, director, Business Processing at Xchanging, committed to a set of guiding principles which will shape Xchanging’s approach to innovation in the insurance sector. He said: “We can imagine in three years a central services platform for the London market which is far less reliant on manual interaction with broker operations. This will be less intrusive for brokers and better aligned to the way brokers and underwriters conduct their business internationally.”

Myers said that the bureau platform, which according to an earlier study delivers savings to participants of at least £150 million a year, has attracted 40 new customers in the last year, stores over 30 million documents on the Insurers’ Market Repository (IMR) and processes over £50 billion annually.

“In everything we do we are seeking to define new and global standard interfaces and ultimately remove legacy altogether as we complete technology transformation,” said Jim Sadler, CIO, Xchanging, “We want it to be as easy to do business here as it is anywhere.”

Speaking of the eAccounts release scheduled for July 2013, Sadler confirmed that this initiative will unify the Company and Lloyd’s markets for the first time with a solution powered by international ACORD standards.

He also revealed that X-presso aspires to be the mobile application of choice for insurance market professionals and confirmed the release of IMR for brokers in July 2013 as promised at the X-presso launch. He went on to unveil three major upgrades, including claims agreement capability, virtual scheduling of face-to-face appointments and functionality on smaller devices.