It is official - Stride Pty Ltd is here

STRIDE (the Short Term Industry Data Exchange) has been officially launched as a company. ‘The industry, under an initiative from the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) and the Financial Intermediaries Association (FIA), has been planning for this

The STRIDE shareholders and board represents the largest SA insurers and brokerages – incorporating the entire local binder holding and binder giving market.

STRIDE has initiated testing the switch with the transfer of data packages between binder holding intermediaries and insurers using the international ACORD standard. ‘Testing is going well with data being switched seamlessly and securely’, says van der Linde.

The positive results thus far result from the considerable expertise within the technical & business project teams, detailing the specifications and investing their time voluntarily to create the framework for a data switch that will enable the industry to unlock the technological opportunities in the future.

The system programming and configuration is outsourced to “insurance switch” specialist company, Astute, which has vast experience gained over the last ten years developing the same type of switch for the life assurance market.

‘The need for an industry data switch has become imperative with the promulgation during December 2011 of the binder holder regulations, since binder holders will have to fully adhere to these regulations by the end of 2012’, says Deon Olckers, (newly appointed General manager, STRIDE).

Deon has gained vast management experience at both Transnet and ABSA and will be responsible for the executive management of STRIDE. ‘I am very excited to see the insurance industry embrace STRIDE on all levels, from being shareholders to getting their different technical and business teams involved right from the beginning’, says Olckers. This will do for insurance what Bankserv has done with SASWITCH for the banking industry.

For businesses requiring instant decisioning capabilities and immediate processing of quotes, the STRIDE data switch will be needed to facilitate the processing of data. The STRIDE secure switch will seamlessly transfer data to and from the insurer and the binder holder in seconds.

STRIDE will be hosting information sessions in the bigger centers over the coming months. If you are in the insurance, personal and commercial lines business and have a binder to place cover immediately and /or need to assist your client/s with claims STRIDE is your answer.

STRIDE is an industry initiative helping insurance well into the modern era of cloud computing and seamless business interaction.