Software systems give you the edge in the technology age

Genasys Technologies is a fast-growing software company that develops and supports world-class software and services for its partners in the insurance industry. It plans to rise from its humble beginnings to emerge as the leading software provider to the South African insurance industry.

"I started Genasys in my spare room in September 1997,” says Steve Symes, CEO of Genasys Technologies. Symes – then based in the UK – was approached to develop a customer-centric insurance management platform for a leading Italian insurer. The rest, as they say, is history.

Genasys entered South Africa in 2001 with Camargue Underwriting as its first client. Word spread and a second client, Hollard Mozambique, soon signed up. The next logical step was to establish a physical presence in its various markets. The group built a local office in Stellenbosch, followed by premises in Johannesburg (in 2005) and London (2006).

Business is good, and Genasys will soon be relocating to a larger Johannesburg premises. "All our consultants are client facing and there is often a need for our Stellenbosch-based development team to meet with clients,” observes Symes. "Our new office has capacity for up to 60 consultants and provides hot desks for visitors. We will grow into these premises as business volumes increase.”

Only 15-years after its humble beginnings, Genasys boasts 60 staff members and manages more than R4 billion in annual premiums with insurers, UMAs, brokers and administrators! This impressive growth enabled the company to specialise in the insurance market. "When we started out we were a project company that built systems on demand,” notes Symes. "Since 2002 we have focused on the insurance sector only.”

The products and services on offer are popular among stakeholders in the industry. Software Key to Insurance (or Ski®) is the group’s primary product, sold as an enterprise insurance platform with bespoke customisations for insurers, national brokers and underwriting managers.

SkiHost is a cloud-based hosted solution that offers smaller brokers similar facilities and services to those the larger brokers enjoy, but at a fraction of the cost. "SKi Enterprise is extremely customizable,” says Symes. "We have all types of short-term insurance offerings running on it in various countries, languages and currencies.”

The company is innovating in the domestic insurance space too. "Last year Genasys approached the major insurers to begin interfacing outsourced platforms with their insurers’ back office platforms,” says Symes. "We have since become the first system provider to successfully deploy the Santam Fusion data exchange for policy, claims and financial data sharing. The company also offers the only outsourced platform to fully support Santam’s Client Lifetime Values renewal process.

Another project, to complete end-June 2012, is the joint development (with Mutual and Federal) of an interface to the insurer’s green box.