Deloitte South Africa forms cutting edge partnerships with international insurance industry IT specialists
Deloitte South Africa has formed partnerships with TIA Technology and edge IPK - both international leaders in the development and supply of specialised IT solutions for the Insurance and financial services sector, it was announced today.
The alliance will bring cutting edge technology in the fields of user experience platforms and policy administration systems to the insurance industry in South Africa. These services will be backed by the holistic financial services capability provided by Deloitte, said Thys Bruwer Director in Deloitte Consulting.
TIA, based in Denmark, is one of the world's leading suppliers of integrated, leading edge standard software solutions for the global insurance industry. TIA’s solutions for policy administration are in daily use in more than 31 countries across the world. TIA is working with major insurance groups in the world such as Allianz, RSA and Liberty. TIA’s customers range from composite insurance carriers, comprehensive insurers, focused insurers and, affiliated brokers (agents) to global risk insurance operators.
Edge IPK is the leading provider of user experience platforms (UXP) for creating and managing business applications through any site, channel or device. The company is based in the UK and has a blue chip customer base in the financial service sector. Edge IPK has undertaken global implementations for ABN AMRO, Willis and Deutsche Bank, and group wide implementations at Zurich Financial Services and Allianz, amongst others.
The solutions are easily upgradeable offering secure access to new functionality and technology, whilst effectively militating against the probability of risks that may impact on a business,” said Bruwer.
The TIA Solution provides all the functionality required to run an insurance company in one integrated system for both non-life as well as life insurers. Bruwer said that TIA really has an amazing depth and breadth of functionality for the insurance market, and has been proven for many clients in South Africa already.
“We are very excited to work with such an experienced vendor of insurance solutions and we believe TIA Technology has the best and most elegant solution on the market today. Especially the ability to run both life and non-life in one fully SOA enabled solution is a compelling offering to the South African market.”
Turning to the services offered by edge IPK, Bruwer said that edge IPK is an enterprise software company focusing on edgeConnect, a UXP which fits within a service oriented architecture and integrates with insurance platforms and other existing back office investments.
“For years insurance companies have been purchasing and creating back-end systems to support a diverse set of lines of business. This has resulted in individual front-end applications to access these processing components.
“edgeConnect creates a managed presentation layer that enables management, underwriters, brokers, agents and the insured to use various channels (including the web, blackberry, iPad and other channels) to link easily with the back-end operations,” says Bruwer.
“Insurers are therefore able to develop and deploy multi-channel applications quicker and more economically than other traditional methods.”
IT systems complexity is reduced, costs are lowered and the return on investment of existing systems and applications is extended and improved. Productivity and efficiency are improved, as is the business ability to respond quickly to changed requirements.
“We are delighted to partner with TIA and edge IPK in offering a package of financial and technical support to the active and highly competitive insurance industry in South Africa. Together we offer a seamless, integrated package of services locally that provide a one-stop professional basket of services to the industry,” Bruwer said.
