Two of the largest insurance brokers in the City have
thrown their weight behind a fledgling electronic messaging system
as part of a wider shake-up of technology in the insurance
market.
The firms, Marsh and Willis, have agreed to put billions of pounds
of property cover through Kinnect, an electronic messaging provider
part owned by Lloyd's of London.
Marsh and Willis will use Kinnect to exchange and document
information about property cover using Acord, an XML-based standard
for exchanging data within the insurance industry.
"This is a real step forward as we are getting rival firms to work
together," said Iain Saville, head of business process reforms at
Lloyd's and executive chairman of Kinnect. "With a simplified and
harmonised electronic transaction process, fewer things can go
wrong."
Lloyd's has also recently embarked on two major IT projects to
eliminate paper-based transactions and help it compete against
international rivals.
The projects - an electronic system for processing back-office and
accounting transactions, and a document repository to store new
claims - will cost £11m to implement and save £50m a year in costs,
Lloyd's has estimated.
The systems will eventually handle about £56bn in transactions each
year and be used by thousands of brokers and IT staff worldwide.
Lloyd's members will have to update their main underwriting and
accounting systems to interface with the new accounting and
settlement system.