STRIDE keeping up with the needs of the modern insurance environment

Whilst the Short-term insurance world is buzzing with the competitive challenges of the industry and the long promised RDR paper that serves as a guidance to industry regarding changes envisaged by the regulator, STRIDE is hard at work to find faster, better and more cost efficient ways for insurers and intermediaries, with and without binders, to do their business.

Industry pressure calling for real time and cost effective delivery of data to all participants including the client is as real as the modern consumer’s expectation of immediate and connected service.

At STRIDE our batch data exchange phase has been up and running for three years now. The take up was, and in some instances is, still hindered by huge challenges on the main line of business systems.

Despite these and whilst trying to keep up with the normal business changes as well as moving into the modern seamless real time consumer world, our take on and running of the switch for all our participants has been successful.

The STRIDE board and all of our strategic industry partners and advisory committees from the outset envisaged a real time live switch and the current switch were developed to accommodate just that. The first phase has been running for some time now and whilst this batch phase is supported and been expanded to include real time messaging, the new phase of implementation is being specified.

Whilst the industry parties worked together to get the first phase implemented the SA ACORD standard was bedded down. Over time, and with our progress, the once dreamt of benefits of the industry switch became more and more apparent. Where our industry lagged behind in inter industry switching, we now saw the benefits and reality of it. We also realised the huge gap to be closed to make the delivery of insurance data more and more efficient.

STRIDE commissioned a subcommittee tasked to investigate the latest needs for seamless insurance switching not only across the insurance industry but also across many disciplines and associated industries. Whilst every serious insurer and broker are looking at web and intelligent mobile-device apps, the need to send data though a secure and working switch is agreed to be of utmost importance. This renewed business model will have to be flexible, accommodate various individual data models and must with it bring swift data transfer as well as be more cost effective.

"The subcommittee has done a lot of work and their report back is expected during the first quarter of 2015. This promises to lead us into a new chapter where the experience gained up to now will culminate in real technology leaps, which was only dreamt of when STRIDE was newly formed." says Arnold van der Linde, Chairman of STRIDE.