Guidewire ClaimCenter Upgrade Considerations · Adopt the Agile Methodology for delivery We would...

A Business Agility Guide

Guidewire ClaimCenter Upgrade Considerations

Business Agility is the leader in specialist development and integration services to the London Market and General Insurance industry.

Table of contents

• Upgrading Guidewire ClaimCenter..............................................P4

• ClaimCenter V9: Key features to consider......................................................P6

• Considerations and recommendations .......................................................................P8

• Rolling out your upgrade......................P9

• Lessons learned .....................................P12

• Conclusion ..............................................P13

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Business Agility Consulting Ltd

The implementation and running of core insurance systems is a substantial undertaking. The investment made needs to yield a significant return and, when implemented correctly, Guidewire products can certainly deliver that return. However, as new product versions are released and wider functionality offered, insurers need to evaluate the benefits of upgrading systems against the choice of not upgrading.

Insurers seeking higher levels of technology ROI,as well as environments that support operational excellence will benefit from robustly evaluating their need to upgrade.

Guidewire V9’s recent release creates a scenario for all existing (and potential) Guidewire customers to evaluate whether an upgrade would help them drive further efficiency, cost savings and increase a competitive edge.

As only the three latest versions of the Guidewire software are supported at any one time, upgrades

are key and vital. Not upgrading such essential systems when they’re available can lead to issues with security and capability, which can cost the business significant losses in revenue.

Upgrade evaluation or core systems provides an opportunity to re-evaluate and re-assess their position on claims data and claims processing. It also provides analysis on how the customer/end-user experience can be improved. In the long term it can bring down costs in managing claims, and gives insight on detailed analytics that can influence business decisions to essentially bring in new market opportunities.

The insights and recommendations in this guide reflect Business Agility’s unparalleled implementation track record and our close, collaborative strategic alliance with Guidewire on successful upgrade programs.

Upgrading Guidewire ClaimCenter

The latest version of ClaimCenter (v9) has number of new features to support various digital demands. These are scalable on the Cloud and have other functionalities that will enable efficient claims processes.

Upgrades can be critical to ongoing operational effectiveness (as well as remaining on a supported version), therefore insurers must seek an effective approach for the upgrade process.

An onus on delivering an ‘Out of the Box’ system is important as decisions made about configuration and customisation during implementation will have a direct impact on how well the upgrade process will run. Robust planning, preparation and scoping can lead insurers to select the optimal version of the software for their needs and objectives, define specific business and technical requirements, and confirm the best upgrade deployment options and timeline.

The value when it comes to upgrading is that insurers experience an efficient, low-risk process that enables them to boost the return on their investment in industry-leading Guidewire applications.

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Straight-through Invoice Processing Straight-through invoice processing automatically initiates payments for invoices without any manual involvement needed. The right claim is matched up with the correct invoice, and the business can then decide which invoices should be paid automatically via set rules.

If a particular invoice doesn’t meet the set rules, it is marked for the adjuster to manually accept and pay. This way, productivity is increased as the adjuster can spend their time on more intricate cases that can take more time to resolve.

Business rules for activities Occasionally, conditions that require a change to the claims process involves an IT request first. Sometimes such requests may not take priority or get missed along the way. Due to this, the opportunity may be lost by the time the changes are made. Business rules for activities gives users the permissions to change what activities are created on a claim. Users can change everything – from when they are created through to whom they are assigned to. The benefit of this is the users have more power to do what needs to be done without unnecessary coding or additional burden on IT’s schedule. E.g. During a catastrophe, claims may need to be changed at a moments’ notice; therefore a certain line of business or geographical rules can be set by the users themselves.

Viewing documents associated with Vendor Contacts Another example of the improved flexibility given to users in ClaimCenter V9 is the ability to use vendor documents capabilities within the claim. You can view documents associated with the claim at vendor level such as service-level agreements or pricing documents. (NB, this feature requires ClaimCenter be integrated with ContactManager).

Did you know?

Clients using ContactManager to maintain contacts, should consider upgrading ContactManager as part of the ClaimCenter upgrade for seamless integration between ClaimCenter and ContactManager.

Did you know Business Agility has....

• Delivered more projects in the UK than any other Guidewire partner

• Achieved the highest ever technical review scores in a Guidewire audit

ClaimCenter V9: Key features to consider

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business-agility.com

Improved subrogation capabilities Improved subrogation capabilities in ClaimCenter V9 offer better automated identification of potential subrogation opportunities and the ability to select which exposures should be subrogated, which means company guidelines are more consistently followed.

The ability to assign a subrogation owner provides improved tracking and gives subrogation team supervisors better insight into team workload and performance.

Support or ‘Going Digital’ Portal solutions help Insurers to modernise their current offerings, address changing, market needs, and achieve superior business results around customer centricity, business agility, and profitability. ClaimCenter V9 integrates seamlessly with Guidewire Digital Portals which can enable and provide real-time information about the Claim and associated transactions. Portals provide greater visibility and transparency throughout claim processing that satisfies policy holders and eases workloads dealt with through contact centres.

Able to roll out in Cloud environment Deploying core insurance systems in the Cloud has been a highly anticipated idea. ClaimCenter V9 is deployable in the Cloud, and you’ll find growing number of Guidewire products are available as Cloud-based solutions. There are several advantages to Cloud-based deployments. These include transforming certain capital expenditures into variable costs, rapid provisioning of computing and storage resources, nearly unlimited scalability, shorter development cycles for both initial implementation and ongoing maintenance, minimising latency across widely dispersed user locations, improved business continuity and disaster recovery, and others.

Other technical benefits include being able to load balance batch process and messaging destination across servers in the cluster environment. This architecture removes the need for having exclusive batch servers and helps to distribute workload across the servers for better performance.

Did you know Business Agility delivered Guidewire’s

• First European Implementation

• First Russian Implementation

• First European ClaimCenter V8 upgrade

• First London Market Extension Pack

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It is essential to time your upgrade correctly. As much as it should be a priority, you also have other factors you need to consider if it’s going to be a successful project. Significant planning is involved when upgrading software – and the following needs to be taken into consideration:

Choose the right version of the application There will be various versions of the application out there depending on what you are currently using. Understand your needs (reflected in your TOM) and select what works best for your architecture.

Ensure your scope is clearly defined A defined scope for the upgrade programme of work is imperative, as it dictates the intricacies of the upgraded system. A focused upgrade will lead to better results. The risk of increased scope, either planned or unplanned (i.e. scope creep), can lead to delays in deployment and longer overall upgrade project time-lines.

Ensure the latest version delivers all the functionality needed With the right planning, you will be able to remove the reliance on customisation and extra configuration. Outline what your most important needs are early on, align them to the Out of The Box model and adhere to them.

Engage the right resources both internally and externally When planning an upgrade to your environment, it can be necessary to shift resources around in order to make the project a success.

Consider future versions - is this a Functional Upgrade or a Technical UpgradeEnsure you have a view on Guidewire’s proposed product roadmap – is this a functional upgrade or a technical upgrade?

Understand the impact of the upgrade process You’ll need to take into consideration how long the upgrade is estimated to take (and then add on any extra time to allow for potential unexpected issues). Will there be any business interruption during the upgrade? If

Considerations & recommendations

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so, outline when this is likely to be and for how long. Have a contingency plan in place in case there’s more disruption than you originally thought.

Understand the full project lifecycle for upgrade1. Upgrade assessment stage2. Upgrade preparation & Optional Business Consultation3. Inception phase4. Design and Development phase5. Stabilisation phase6. User Acceptance Testing7. Production deployment8. Post deployment support

Adopt the Agile Methodology for deliveryWe would recommend your upgrade project be delivered true to the Agile methodology; providing greater transparency and alignment of business requirements. Your delivery partner should to be on-site for certain phases and regular updates (e.g., testing should be completed on-site (esp UAT), as the focus will mainly be on regression testing).

Select the right implementation partner To get the job done correctly and efficiently, we recommend that you choose a delivery partner with deep experience with Guidewire upgrade programmes. Business Agility will make recommendations, provide best practices, and ensures that no stone is left unturned.

CLAIMS

Did you know Business Agility has....

• Implemented more London Market ClaimCenter projects than any other SI

• Implemented the first ClaimCenter project in Europe (and the second)

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Our approach for upgrade is based on vast amounts of experience gained in implementing Guidewire products across insurance domains and lessons learnt from various successful implementations. As part of the upgrade process we:

• Analyse and recommend the most beneficial upgrade version after doing a ‘deep dive’ into the current application in place.

• Access and define necessary changes that are needed in the underlying software and hardware that are needed for the infrastructure to support upgrade versions.

• Resolve code upgrade conflicts by updating to use recommended data model changes and buy-in from the business to utilise the change in workflow and user interface that is available in the upgraded version.

• Update depreciated plug-in methods and classes by re-factoring the code to use recommended APIs and integration architecture in the upgraded version.

• Review external systems and possible impact of the upgrade project. An upgrade may require changes to external systems as well. (For example, latest ClaimCenter supports WS-I but not RPC anymore.)

• Support test team to carry out functional testing, regression testing, End to End testing, performance testing and user acceptance testing.

• Help our clients to update the training manual to capture the new changes to the workflow and user interface.

Rolling out your Upgrade

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Every business is different, and the way you manage the upgrade process can be vital to how successful the process is. We have some final tips to ensure your upgrade process is seamless:

• Have test scripts in hand before doing an upgrade to the baseline current version and that can be executed as and when required to validate and benchmark upgrade changes.

• Understand outstanding issues in the current version and explore possibilities of resolving the issues by using new features.

• Engage the infrastructure team right from the inception phase to avoid delays in rolling out infrastructure changes to support the upgrade.

• Identify balancing and reconciliation reports for key integrations, especially those that involve financials.

• It’s beneficial to compile a unified list of integrations before an upgrade project begins. This inventory should include a brief description of each integration point, the type of integration (inbound, outbound, bidirectional), and the mechanism (adapter, web service, flat file, template).

Business Agility Key Guidewire facts

• Recipent of the highest Partner Healthcheck scores• Award recognition: Guidewire Technical Innovation Of The Year (Connections 2013)• First European Partner• Only UK partner recommended by Guidewire for QA roles• 31 ClaimCenter projects to date – all on time and on budget

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When it comes to upgrading, we recommend you see it as an essential to successfully progress your digital journey. The value in upgrading is that insurers experience a well-organised, low-risk method that allows them to increase the return on their investment in industry-leading Guidewire applications. Upgrading can be costly, but with the right amount of planning and resource management, it can be one of the best investments your business makes.

With the right tools, Guidewire ClaimCenter V9 can give your business the control it needs to effectively manage the claims process. Blockers in the system that may be causing you problems now may be eliminated by implementing the upgrade. Blockers are a good reason to upgrade; as they can cost the business lots of time and money. The insurance industry may be a slowly moving one, but it’s also highly competitive. It’s imperative to be ahead of the game where your digital development is concerned.

Lessons learned

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We were Guidewire’s first partner in Europe and, in 2006, we delivered the first European Guidewire ClaimCenter system. Since then we have successfully engaged with clients from Los Angeles to Moscow to Japan to Europe and the UK.

Our experienced consultants have deep Property and Casualty (P&C) industry knowledge and apply this to each and every project. We partner with our clients to assist them with program mobilisation, program management, iteration planning/management, process and requirements definition, systems integration, test automation and execution, data migration, reporting/analytics and deployment. In conjunction with Guidewire, we have a wide array of accelerators that can be used to expedite implementation and reduce cost.

If you’d like to know more about how we can support your Guidewire ClaimCenter upgrade, get in contact with us and we’ll be happy to help.

Conclusion

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Contact us for support and advice on Guidewire Implementation and Upgrades

[email protected]

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Business Agility Consulting LtdSpirella Building

Bridge RoadLetchworth Garden City SG6 4ET

01462 470 [email protected]

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