Insurance company installs SOA to increase online competitiveness

Towergate Underwriting uses technology to get products to market to quicker

Towergate hopes SOA will make it more competitive

Insurance specialist Towergate Underwriting has installed a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to create multiple online products efficiently and quickly.

The firm is using IPK’s EdgeConnect platform to increase competitiveness by allowing it to rapidly launch new products.

The technology is integrated with Towergate’s back-office broker and underwriting systems, and its document and workflow software.

The ‘write once, publish multiple times’ model allows Towergate to make changes to products in a single process, which is

delivered in multiple presentations so the firm can focus on e-commerce rather than complex web development.

Max Carruthers, operations director at Towergate, says the firm has 190 products.

‘Until now we had to handcraft products one by one which took three to four days and then a week in production,’ he said. ‘The enormity of it was getting out of control, but with EdgeConnect we have taken 50 per cent out of the workload.

‘The business logic is in the back office which means we do not have to re-key information and can allow self-servicing, because there is only one set of data. When we complete a transaction, EdgeConnect renders the pages,’ said Carruthers.

‘The technology has given us a market-leading position as many competitors have a rigid back-office system. We have a more flexible environment that can respond quickly to the market and we can build web sites that competitors cannot even contemplate,’ he said.