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In a visionary step, Anker Insurance Company has undergone a crucial change by opting for a new insurance application developed via Novulo's innovative composable insurance platform. This strategic transition to a new back office offers Anker Crew Insurance improved operational efficiency, including faster processing of policies and claims via the Novulo platform. The ambitious transition project, aptly named “Wave”, included not only the upgrade of functional capabilities. It also involved a careful migration of all valuable historical data from the previous system.
Founded in 1907 by three Groningen shipowners, Anker Insurance Company has developed from a local maritime insurer into a global player. The company, which started with a focus on insuring ship crews, has expanded its operations and customer base worldwide, growing its premium volume from four to over forty million euros. In addition to supporting employers with insurance and services to care for their seafarers, Anker Insurance Company offers insurance solutions in the areas of legal assistance, recreation and travel insurance. Anker Rechtshulp represents the services of legal expenses insurance by providing intake, advice and professional legal guidance.
The choice for a new system fell on Novulo because of the functionality already available in the store and flexibility in data access. This makes integration with, for example, web portals possible, something that independently proved impossible with the previous system, according to Joris Bos, technical director at Anker Insurance Company. Innovating with established system house suppliers for the insurance sector such as ANVA, DIAS and CCS yielded an unsatisfactory result. In-house development on common composable platforms or with the help of coding frameworks also proved not to be feasible due to costs and risks. The Wave application was built on Novulo's application composition platform. “Thanks to the migration of historical data, insurance activities can now be carried out more efficiently via Wave,” says Joris. “This is an important milestone for us. We find it important to be able to do more ourselves to continuously improve our services. With the commissioning of Wave, we are now at the helm ourselves.”
With the recent renewal of the back office, Anker Insurance Company is taking an important step forward in improving online services. “This year, we focused on upgrading our internal processes, including the back office,” Joris continues. “In the Wave program, together with the teams and Novulo, we have made significant improvements. This investment is aimed at strengthening customer service and increasing business efficiency.”
The next phase includes the integration of the renewed back office with the customer portal. Through this integration, which can be carried out with a standard component in the Novulo platform, customer insurance information can be included in the portal. Facilitating self-help will boost the department by giving customers better insight and being able to handle things independently, while Anker Insurance Company, in turn, will have more time and attention for the customers who need it.
The switch to Novulo was careful and detailed. While preparing for the transition, Anker Insurance Company specifically looked at how the new system can help improve financial processes, such as managing the deductible when insuring ship crews. This analysis of the functionality present in the platform and the required functionality was considered to be bridgeable. After this pilot, the back office transition was initiated.
To achieve the transition, a project team was set up internally that, with project supervision from Novulo, largely carried out the transition independently. Existing insurance-enabled components from the Novulo store were added to the insurance application. The company has further developed other components, including absenteeism registration and post-processing. As well as functionality for intermediaries and financial quality controls to ensure an optimal 'fit' of the software with your own business operations. That also applied to an important other ingredient of the switch. The challenging export and migration process of data from CCS Level was successfully completed thanks to the expertise of Novulo-partner Insurance Data (then still under the name Grijpma-ASG) and the efforts of the project team that knew its own data well.
In a world where companies are constantly looking for ways to optimize their way of working, Novulo stands out with a unique approach. “Due to the specific information needs about maritime insurance solutions and services, we had a hard time finding software that optimally supports the primary process,” Joris continues. “Novulo's composable insurance platform allows us to independently and independently incorporate the required functionality into the application composition. This is achievable because the platform has a wide base of insurance functionality that can be optimally tailored to your own processes. Facilitating us as a self-developing customer is closely in line with Novulo's philosophy. This self-reliance has proven to be a key aspect for us.”
By using Novulo's platform, Anker Insurance Company itself has created functionalities that are unique to its own insurance processes. This innovative approach breaks the barriers of traditional systems and stimulates innovation in the insurance market. “If every insurance company can create a composition that suits its own unique needs, then companies and the sector can take steps,” says Bos. “Novulo itself will also take further steps to further reduce its dependence on Novulo by making external developers more self-reliant by improving development tools and documentation.”
With the launch of Novulo's composable insurance platform, Anker Insurance Company has raised the bar for what's possible in the insurance world. Looking beyond traditional software paths, they have ushered in a new era where ambitious goals are achieved, complex migrations run smoothly and the business sees its wishes realized, while also reducing costs. Anker is now synonymous with innovation and customer focus, marking the beginning of a revolutionary change in the sector.
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