Tyser & Co. overhauls its claims system to transform business

The prospect of providing a differentiated level of customer service through technology was a motivating factor for a recently completed overhaul of the claims-processing and management systems at London-based insurance and reinsurance broker Tyser & Co. Ltd., said Edward Slade, the company's chief information officer.

Rather than selecting an off-the-shelf solution, Tyser opted to create a bespoke claims system from existing best-of-breed document management and workflow component technologies, Mr. Slade said.

“We didn't set out to build our own, but we couldn't find anything out there that met our requirements,” he said. “Claims in the Lloyd's of London market are quite complex, and we wanted a common system.”

The increasing viability of cloud-based components also accelerated the development, he said.

“We are fairly comfortable with the cloud. For us, for a number of years now, cloud computing has been at the forefront of how we operate,” he said.

Because the project was an attempt at business transformation, the ultimate business users of the system were intimately involved in the new system's development, Mr. Slade said.

“One thing that made a massive difference is that our claims people really wanted this to happen,'' he said. “We had their engagement and buy-in.”