EAS305 Moving Insurance Comparative Quoting to the Web--Success without Web Experience

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EAS305 Moving Insurance Comparative Quoting to
the Web--Success without Web Experience
Presenters Names Kerry Ferguson and Carson
HagerPresenters Titles President, Ferguson
Associates President Cynergy SystemsPresenters
Email / Phone Number kwferguson_at_fergusonassoc.co
m, carson.hager_at_cynergysystems.com Date
August 6, 2003
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Marine Comparative Quoting The Players

• Boat Owner
• Insurance Agent
• Specialized Marine Insurance Carrier
• Marine Broker

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The Original Quoting Process

• Boat Owner contacts Insurance Agent
• Agent contacts Marine Broker by
• Phone
• Fax
• Marine Broker contacts Specialty Insurance
  Carriers to get quotes by
• Phone
• Fax
• Entry into proprietary system
• Some Carriers require Clearance
• Marine Broker prepares Quote Comparison Sheet and
  sends to Agent
• Agent reviews with Boat Owner
• Cycle repeats until Boat Owner accepts a quote

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The Marine Broker Application Solution

• Set up the Carrier Rating Programs in a Marine
  Broker Application NorthStar Navigator
• Enter Boat Owner and Boat Information Once
• One Click and produce multiple quotes from
  multiple Carriers
• Save and modify quotes until Boat Owner decides
  on quote

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Comparative Quotes
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The Marine Policy Administration Application

• Two tier application
• PowerBuilder / ASA
• Highly normalized data model including a time
  dimension
• Extensive NVO, Datawindow, and Datastore use
• Full policy lifecycle processing

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Navigators Carrier Rating Administration

• No hard coding
• Reference tables for insurance definitions
• Common rate table for all Carriers
• Formula Builder
• Rating Rules Engine

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Formula Builder

• PowerBuilder
• Builds custom DataWindow expressions
• Accesses table columns, standard functions and
  custom functions
• Includes a Test Facility
• Saves formulas for use by the Rating Rules Engine

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Formula Builder
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Rating Rules Engine

• Retrieves Boat information into Datastores
• Determines Formulas to process
• Parses Formula to determine required boat
  information
• Sets boat information into external Datawindow
  columns
• Sets the formula into the expression property of
  a computed column
• Formula may invoke external functions to access
  the rate table
• Returns the result of the computed column
• Update normalized tables with time dimension to
  track multiple quotes

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Key Rating Issues

• Quotes average 100 formula evaluations each
• Common rate table has 240,000 rate rows
• Rate table is loaded and indexed at system
  startup to improve performance
• Rates are accessed by Datastore Finds

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Common Shared Rate Table
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Successful PowerBuilder Two Tier Application

• Marine Brokers are happy They can produce
  comparative quotes in minutes rather than hours
  or days
• Still opportunity to dramatically improve process
• Data Collection and Communication between
  Insurance Agent and Marine Broker is the
  bottleneck
• Solution Move comparative quoting to the Web!

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Problem We dont know Web

• Application and Web Servers?
• JSPs?
• Javascript?

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Our Web Objectives

• Reuse our Rating Rules Engine
• Reuse our Rate Table and functions
• Reuse other NVOs with Datastore arguments
• Perform extensive processing before web page is
  sent and before tables are updated
• Easily update multiple tables from one web page
• Asynchronous XML Clearance
• Assure scalable performance

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Our Solutions

• EAServer
• Cynergy Systems EAF Framework

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Cynergy Systems EAF Framework

• Immediate Reuse of DataWindows on the Web
• Provides flexible and highly customizable set of
  objects to put complex, updateable DataWindows on
  the Web today
• Processing Model
• Proven framework with flexible event model to
  reuse PowerBuilder code
• Seamless delegation to business objects from
  DataWindow data
• DataSets
• Object view of a DataSet providing update and
  retrieve events as well as output customization
  event model
• Business Objects
• Framework ancestor layer to place reusable
  business logic

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Other Helpful EAF Features

• Security
• Debug and Trace Logging
• ExtraData for dropdown DataWindow arguments and
  custom messaging
• Multi-Table updating
• ads_working easy to pass Datastore as argument
  to components to reuse DataStore-based business
  logic

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Business Objects
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Business Object Methods
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XML messaging for clearance

• Clearance required to quote from largest carrier
  using XML interface over the web using HTTP
• Multi-Threaded Java CORBA component implemented
  to act as gateway to the third party XML/HTTP Web
  Service
• Implemented asynchronous processing to prevent
  bottleneck caused by delays from the third party
• Used the EAServer ThreadManager to easily
  implement asynchronous processing
• Send request as soon as all required data has
  been captured
• Post response to database and retrieve when
  needed
• Provided a simple single method call PowerBuilder
  proxy to encapsulate the complexity of the XML
  Processing
• Parsing using JAXP
• Submitting/Receiving the request using HTTP

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Asynchronous XML
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Rate Engine Shared Service Component

• 240,000 rate rows retrieved and indexed in a
  service component
• Broke out just code to evaluate the formula into
  shared component
• Remaining rating code stays in standard component
• Result
• Rate rows only retrieved and indexed once, ready
  to use after that
• Minimize the processing in the shared component
  to prevent bottleneck. Quick in / Quick out
• How did we do it?

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Shared Component
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EAS305 Moving Insurance Comparative Quoting to
the Web--Success without Web Experience
Presenters Names Kerry Ferguson and Carson
HagerPresenters Titles President, Ferguson
Associates President Cynergy SystemsPresenters
Email / Phone Number kwferguson_at_fergusonassoc.co
m, carson.hager_at_cynergysystems.com Date
August 6, 2003