IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that Insurer Messaging Network, its new service to enable London Market insurers to take data electronically from brokers, is operational following the successful completion of end to end testing with market participants.
The London Market is implementing a wave of reforms to improve its cost efficiency, customer service and competitive position. A key element in this is the introduction of electronic data transfer between market participants to replace the traditional costly and inefficient paper based operations. The IBM Insurer Messaging Network, built on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to ensure flexibility and using the ACORD insurance industry data standard as adopted in London, offers the most cost effective and efficient way for providing the necessary connectivity for all parties in the London Market.
"This is a significant landmark in IBM's commitment to supporting the reform of the London market" commented Graham Wright, UKISA Insurance Leader, IBM Global Business Services. "We look forward to market participants benefiting from the service and joining the brokers and insurers who have already signed letters of intent to use the messaging network."
IBM originally announced its intention to launch a managed messaging service in March 2007. Since then, the service has been developed and successfully market tested with a leading broker (Benfield) and insurer (Hiscox) and ACORD, the international insurance data standards body and is now available to all market participants.
"Electronic trading is now becoming the accepted way forward in the London market", commented Annie Rannie of Hiscox, "and this new service offers insurers a straightforward and effective way of joining the growing number of insurers who are now moving to this way of conducting business".
"Data transfer is now taking off in the London Market," confirmed Rupert Swallow, Head of Global Operations at Benfield. "The introduction of this service by a company of the pedigree of IBM is recognition of this shift in the market, and offers a cost effective choice for insurers who wish to start reaping the benefits of data transfer".
The pace of adoption of electronic trading in the London Market has been inhibited by technical limitations of many insurer and broker systems which have not traditionally been designed for connectivity with other trading partners. A key strength of the IBM Insurer Messaging Network is that it offers insurers and brokers an extremely low cost and simple staged entry into electronic trading (through email) so that they can take advantage of many of the benefits of data transfer at the same time as their systems are being upgraded to handle full external connectivity. This means they can fully exploit the benefits of the market wide reform initiatives now underway and shortly to be rolled out.
"We welcome this new service which supports the roll out of ACORD standards," said Roy Laker of ACORD, "and have been impressed by the speed with which it has been launched and the ease of connecting with it."
The new Insurer Messaging Service uses IBM's experience of building and since 2003 running the imarket electronic trading platform for the UK company market. imarket is the electronic trading network run by Polaris, the organisation responsible for defining electronic trading standards for the UK General Insurance Industry (excluding the London Market).