Accelerating document retrieval response times

Hands typing on a laptop with holographic blue and purple file icons representing digital file management and data organization behind them

For London Market claims teams, rapid access to documents of all kinds is key to handling claims efficiently. Policy files, bordereaux, expert reports, correspondence, invoices and supporting evidence often sit across shared market infrastructure, rather than within the carrier’s own systems. Claims handlers need to be able to call up the documents they need, when they need them, regardless of where they’re stored.

So performance across the connections between systems matters just as much as performance within carriers’ claims management systems. Even small delays, multiplied across hundreds of claims tasks, can significantly slow decision-making, cause frustration for users, and add unnecessary friction to already complex workflows. That’s why we’re happy to flag some major progress recently made on response times from one of the key systems DOCOsoft clients need to access.

Our platform gives users the ability to retrieve documents from the Insurers’ Market Repository (IMR) and view them in the CMS. Put simply, this functionality uses the ACORD Document Repository Interface (DRI) messaging, which consists of a DRI Download request (asking for the document) and a DRI Download response (receiving the document).

Obviously, claims handlers would like to receive documents as soon as possible, but in practice DRI request response times can vary. Back in 2024 there was a noticeable increase in response times. Velonetic were seeing an average daily backlog of two to three thousand DRI download requests. At DOCOsoft, we were seeing average weekly download times as high as 102 minutes.

At this point, the Support Team started monitoring response times daily to make sure we could keep our clients informed about any delays. Since then, we’re happy to report, Velonetic have invested a lot of time and effort in improving their service. This has seen average response times fall to well under an hour, 15 to 20 minutes in a good week.

Not content with that, Velonetic have also invested in the hardware the service runs on. Overnight on 12/13 March, Velonetic upgraded the underlying storage supporting DRI to new high-performance disks. The result has been that documents can now be accessed and delivered more quickly and consistently, as evidenced in the significant reduction in response times we’ve seen over the past few weeks. Velonetic’s average daily queue for DRI download requests is now down to as little as 200. From a DOCOsoft perspective, we’ve seen average download times brought down to just four minutes.

This is great news. And there’s more to come. Velonetic are continuing their hard work to improve this service. The next phase of improvement will focus on how the underlying systems are structured, and realigning high volume services like document retrieval and aspects of claims workflow processing to better utilise available resources. The aim is to make performance not just faster, but more consistent and scalable.

Encouragingly, this also reinforces Velonetic’s message that the existing platform remains capable of meeting the market’s needs, with continued investment focused on improving performance and resilience rather than wholesale replacement. It’s an approach that reflects how change is increasingly happening across the market: evolving and strengthening what already works, while progressively introducing new capabilities alongside it. This aligns closely with DOCOsoft’s own way of working, helping clients join the dots between established market infrastructure and newer, more flexible solutions to deliver practical improvements without disruption.