DOCOsoft & Blueprint Two
As the Lloyd’s and London market prepares to take a major step towards full digitization, DOCOsoft is leading the way in making sure its customers are fully prepared to take advantage of the benefits Blueprint Two brings.
DOCOsoft and Blueprint Two
As the leading provider of claims software solutions to the London (re)insurance market, DOCOsoft has been closely involved in this transformational project throughout its development, contributing influential feedback, constructive suggestions, and practical insight at every stage.
DOCOsoft’s customers collectively account for 30% of the Lloyd’s market. Each month, we process more than two million claims messages on their behalf, half of the market’s entire monthly total. We and our customers are heavily invested in making a success of Blueprint Two.
You’re in safe hands with DOCOsoft
DOCOsoft is leading the way among vendors serving the Lloyd’s and London market through our comprehensive engagement with every aspect of the Blueprint Two initiative as it comes together.
Given the critical importance of Blueprint Two performing as expected, DOCOsoft is taking no chances, leaving no stone unturned to ensure our clients can transition smoothly to London’s digital future.
Market engagement
Since the Blueprint Two project was first announced, DOCOsoft’s experts have engaged actively around every market event, every announcement, every release of specifications or documentation.
Ahead of each event, we make sure we’ve fully assimilated what’s at stake, what outcomes are anticipated, which members of our team can bring the most relevant skills and expertise, and what we need to do to ensure that all relevant interests and perspectives are represented.
We analyze materials made available in advance and prepare questions we’ll be pressing for answers on. We take detailed notes at meetings and events and share these with our client community. Following each event, we identify escalations, update risk maps and project plans, and circulate a full analysis with action points to our clients. We typically issue at least one such report a month, supplemented by customer-specific briefings and escalations as appropriate.
Documentation review
With specifications and documentation for Blueprint Two Phase 1 emerging gradually and incrementally, DOCOsoft’s expert team continually reviews everything published to check that all functional and technical messaging specs are up to date and accurately reflect current project scope and requirements.
We validate assumptions across Writeback claim notification, retrieval and response, claims workflow triggers (CWTs) and the ACORD document repository interface (DRI). We review data dictionaries and change requests (CRs) to ensure that changes made since the original go-live have been updated in the documentation.
Writeback build and implementation
Based on a detailed understanding of our clients’ business needs and expectations of the rebuilt Writeback system, DOCOsoft carries out a thorough technical impact analysis of how all proposed changes and new implementations affect its systems and infrastructure, identifying potential risks and modifications that need to be made.
We look closely at project security protocols to ensure they align with current and anticipated requirements.
We continue to monitor what is being built to ensure it aligns with the Writeback functionality DOCOsoft clients enjoy today.
Client testing support
DOCOsoft will also be supporting clients as they conduct user acceptance testing (UAT) to verify whether the system fully supports all business and user scenarios.
This includes preparing on-boarding documentation and helping clients register for testing with Velonetic, developing customised deployment plans for each client and making configuration changes to clients’ UAT environment to enable testing against the new Velonetic system.
We will perform connectivity testing to ensure correct two-way message flow between clients’ and Velonetic’s systems and provide business analysis support around proposed client UATs.
We can add significant value working with clients to review issues identified in UAT for triage or further testing.
Cutover planning and execution
Planning for the cutover process on go-live is a critical consideration. We are creating new customised DevOps pipelines in our deployment tool for each of our clients – and providing each client with a bespoke deployment plan (including rollback plans). We will ensure production registration based on correct on-boarding details and conduct connectivity testing wherever possible to avoid messaging failures due to issues such as firewall configuration. For obvious reasons, rollback scenario planning is crucially important – and something we will be paying particular attention to. We will be reviewing Velonetic’s cutover plan to identify any gaps or concerns.
When it comes to execution, our dedicated cutover team will ensure that all systems, infrastructure and participants are fully prepared and operational, liaising closely with Velonetic at every stage, and ensuring comprehensive backups are made of all critical data to ensure safe restoration, should issues arise at cutover. Plans and provisions will be in place for us to provide remote access support to client teams during cutover. We will also deploy any changes required to clients’ production environments during cutover.
Hypercare support after go-live
During the first three months after Phase 1 go-live, we will be providing a dedicated rapid-response troubleshooting and support service to ensure any and all issues are resolved quickly – and meeting daily with client teams to review system performance, discuss issues, and coordinate responses.
Our hypercare service includes support for message monitoring and management to unlock potential issue-resolution bottlenecks. We will also be conducting ongoing analysis of system performance against pre-launch benchmarks to identify deviations or areas for improvement, meeting regularly with Velonetic to discuss issues and resolution, and planning for the transition from hypercare to standard support.
Why nothing can be left to chance with Blueprint Two
The potential benefits of Blueprint Two are truly transformational and should leave London well-placed to retain its pivotal role in the global (re)insurance ecosystem. By the same token, failing to deliver a smooth and orderly transition to new digital ways of working could deal a heavy blow to London’s global reputation.
This project is too important for any of us to allow it to falter or stumble – or to risk dropping the ball on critical customer service. At DOCOsoft, we’re 100% focused on playing our full part in getting our clients securely started on the path to a prosperous digital future.
Where are we now?
Any project as ambitious and all-encompassing as Blueprint Two is bound to encounter challenges along the way. But if we all keep our eyes on the prize and turn every stone to uncover potential pitfalls along the way, the rewards will be well worth the effort.
Clearly, not every landmark has been – or will be – reached exactly when and how originally envisaged. But with an unwavering focus on taking every practical step to ensure our clients are fully prepared, DOCOsoft is 100% committed to making London’s digital future work.
To read about the latest state of play on all things Blueprint-Two-related, see our latest blog posts here.
What is Blueprint Two?
Blueprint Two will rebuild the London Market’s core platform systems from the ground up, moving them from mainframe environments to the cloud.
It consists of two phases. Phase 1 involves replacing all legacy systems and moving all users to a new cloud-hosted single digital platform. Phase 2 will enable the market to operate in a fully digital environment, with full digital placement of risks and more extensive use of electronic messaging.
Phase 1 is not geared to making any fundamental changes to how market participants work, but Phase 2 will see the market adopting new ways of working and new, more efficient business processes.
Simultaneous adoption of Phase 1 is mandatory, but market participants can choose when they wish to adopt Phase 2.
A new cloud-hosted single digital platform for Blueprint Two Phase 1 is being built from the ground up. This consists of two new mandatory systems for premiums and claims settlements – for both open market and delegated authority business.
These are the International Premium Orchestration (IPOS) and International Claims Orchestration (ICOS) services. IPOS will replace the existing premium systems, LIDS and POSH (XIS), with ICOS replacing the current claims systems, CLASS and ECF (XCS).
Blueprint Two envisages a big-bang approach to adopting Phase 1. The various legacy systems for premiums and claims processing will be switched off in July 2024. All new transactions will then go through IPOS and ICOS.
Also encompassed within Phase 1 is re-platforming the Insurers’ Market Repository (IMR), the common market repository for all the documentation that supports accounting, settlement, and claims processes. This entails moving roughly 80 million documents from a legacy repository system to the cloud.
Blueprint Two Phase 2 will involve developing a new Core Data Record (CDR) standard and deploying a new Digital Gateway to receive, validate, augment and store CDR data and associated documentation. The new Digital Gateway will be accessible via trading platforms, directly via API or through CDR extraction. The key here is using this data in all forms of processing to minimise errors and reduce re-keying and duplicated effort.