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

1. EAS305 Moving Insurance Comparative Quoting to the Web--Success without Web Experience Presenter’s Names: Kerry Ferguson and Carson HagerPresenter’s Titles: President, Ferguson & Associates; President Cynergy SystemsPresenter’s Email / Phone Number: kwferguson@fergusonassoc.com, carson.hager@cynergysystems.com Date: August 6, 2003

2. Marine Comparative Quoting – The Players • Boat Owner • Insurance Agent • Specialized Marine Insurance Carrier • Marine Broker

3. 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

4. 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

5. Comparative Quotes

6. 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

7. Navigator’s Carrier Rating Administration • No hard coding • Reference tables for insurance definitions • Common rate table for all Carriers • Formula Builder • Rating Rules Engine

8. 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

9. Formula Builder

10. 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

11. 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

12. Common Shared Rate Table

13. 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!

14. Problem – We don’t know Web • Application and Web Servers? • JSPs? • Javascript?

15. 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

16. Our Solutions • EAServer • Cynergy Systems EAF Framework

17. 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

18. 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

19. Business Objects

20. Business Object Methods

21. 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

22. Asynchronous XML

23. 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?

24. Shared Component

25. EAS305 Moving Insurance Comparative Quoting to the Web--Success without Web Experience Presenter’s Names: Kerry Ferguson and Carson HagerPresenter’s Titles: President, Ferguson & Associates; President Cynergy SystemsPresenter’s Email / Phone Number: kwferguson@fergusonassoc.com, carson.hager@cynergysystems.com Date: August 6, 2003