In Partnership with

The power of partnership

How does an insurer go live with new core systems for a major broker network in just six months – during a pandemic? That’s what Hollard accomplished, thanks to perfect alignment with its three project partners

Steve Browne

Xceedance

Industry experts

Ian Haigh

Precisely

Shaji Sethu

Duck Creek Technologies

Trevor Baldwin

Baldwin Risk Partners

With an international background in business and technology, Steve Browne has delivered insurance technology solutions to the Australian and New Zealand markets for more than 30 years. His focus on identifying core solutions for organisations and assessing appropriate delivery models has ensured the most strategic outcomes for clients. Creating successful teams and building businesses by leveraging technology solutions, Browne has managed large multicountry implementations. He has secured significant new business across regions in customer-facing solutions and systems of record and established knowledgeable teams to ensure cost-effective solution delivery. Before joining Xceedance, Browne held senior roles at CSC Australia, Lumley Technology, SSP in Australia, and Computer Power Group in Australia and the US.

Xceedance

Steve Browne

Ian Haigh is currently the Asia Pacific services and presales manager at Precisely. Haigh’s 25 years of consulting and management experience spans solutions design, architecture, integration and delivery to help organisations implement effective solutions to optimise their customer engagement. Haigh has worked with several big brands in the industry, including EML and Hollard Insurance.

Precisely

Ian Haigh

Based out of Duck Creek’s Sydney office, Shaji Sethu started his career as an engineer before quickly transitioning into IT as a developer and then into consulting roles and managing consulting practices within the region. Most recently, Sethu drove sales and delivery of cloud-based platform solutions, managed services and IT transformation consulting for an Australian consulting organisation that was subsequently acquired by a global Japanese telco. In his current role at Duck Creek, Sethu works with clients in Australia and across the APAC region as they grapple with the challenges of modernising their legacy technologies and transitioning to Duck Creek’s innovative SaaS platform.

Duck Creek Technologies

Shaji Sethu

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Baldwin Risk Partners

Trevor Baldwin

Vault Plus Mortgage and Finance Consultancy

David Merison

“We had to embrace new tooling, new ways of working, and lean into an IT systems collaboration model that had not significantly been stressed or tested at scale before”

Jamie Smith, CIO, Hollard

WHEN HOLLARD needed to integrate a new three-product portfolio into its newly acquired technology platform, it began scanning the landscape for eligible partners to deliver the project. While the insurance industry was awash with potential providers, the insurer opted to “buy on value rather than price”, says Hollard CIO Jamie Smith. “We needed partners that listened to what we were telling them rather than pushing their solutions onto us, asked intelligent questions, probed into the problems we were trying to solve and were innovative in their answers.” The program both enhanced and further laid the foundations of Hollard’s “technology-enabled business transformation”, says Smith, and was part of a series of investments underpinning the insurer’s technology roadmap. It was therefore critical that the foundations were rock solid.

“A ‘follow the sun’ right-shore model enabled Xceedance to provide services to the Hollard project 24/7/365”

Stephen Browne, Xceedance

“The low-code configuration of DCT’s platform drops time to market, and its descriptive nature allowed Hollard to match up with the core requirements of brokers and clients”

Shaji Sethu, Duck Creek Technologies

Hollard had been appointed to underwrite three personal motor, landlord and home insurance lines for a major broker network. It needed to integrate them into its new technology, then transition the data to the broker network platform. And the insurer required fit-for-purpose applications that would enable it to meet its strategic goals. Hollard’s primary role was defining the target state architecture then bringing together its own and partner teams to deliver on collective objectives. In a competitive and highly regulated environment, the agility and speed with which Hollard could go to market was critical to its partners’ success and its own continued growth. DCT’s platform fit the bill nicely.

“With this project we believe we proved that even complex customer journeys can be delivered without the traditional hard-coded approach”

Ian Haigh, Precisely

Precisely provided the underpinning technology – the low-code platform EngageOne – that helped generate Hollard’s customer correspondence, contracts and templates. Precisely also provided additional expertise to help Hollard convert its existing documents into templates that could deal with the multiple brands in its wholesale distribution model. “We helped Hollard design communication templates that were flexible enough to give each brand its distinct look and feel, while achieving efficiency and scalability,” says Ian Haigh, Asia Pacific services and presales manager at Precisely. “Ongoing regulatory changes drove the need for an efficient approach to updating templates and making changes to terms, as well as giving Hollard the opportunity to remove manual processes related to correspondence.”

The project was completed in three phases. Phase one involved eliciting from the business exactly what the project had to deliver and “converting those requirements into a series of business solutions”, says Smith. “For example, strategically we wish to rationalise the number of products we have in the market; by eliciting these high-level requirements then converting them into solutions we were able to design products and interfaces that could benefit from underpinning technology – measure twice, cut once!” Phase two entailed a series of ‘deliverable sprints’, with testing within each sprint ensuring the technology was configured to a high standard. The final phase was testing, migration and service introduction.

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

12%

10%

1.7%

3.8%

7.0

All ADIs

Major Banks

Mutual Banks

Lessons learned from Project Hollard

7.5%

6.7%

11.3%

5.3%

4.9%

3.8%

3.0%

3.6%

7.3%

“Our roadmap was tied to several existing renewal contracts for legacy technology, and we wished to exit these as part of our strategic review. We also wished to limit the amount of regrettable spend on legacy technology as we move into a period of significant regulatory change, along with other commitments to our partners.” The value-first purchasing strategy was worthwhile. With low-code tools from Duck Creek Technologies (DCT), implementation by Xceedance, and a customer communications platform from Precisely, combined with the dedication of the ‘Hollardites’, the new platform was able to go live in Australia within just six months. While impressive by any standards, against the backdrop of COVID it was exceptional. Smith never doubted it was doable. “While our time frame appeared to be tight for a project of this complexity, we strongly believed with the right team and technology it was realistic.”

As systems integrator, Xceedance was engaged to manage the complex, multilayered transition to the Duck Creek platform, says Stephen Browne, Xceedance VP and country leader for Australia. “Digital collaboration and having our personnel operating across three time zones – the US, India and Australia – enabled the project team to operate 24/7.” Additionally, the Xceedance team’s strong knowledge of the local Australian market and shared core values made them a good fit for the project.

The project by numbers

CUA

Billion

12%

$17.44

Billion

$10.83

Billion

$10.09

Newcastle Permanent

Heritage Bank

Billion

$8.81

People's Choice

Billion

$8.04

Teachers Mutual

14%

Treating DCT, Xceedance and Precisely as an extension of the Hollard team rather than vendors was key. “We started and finished this project under COVID restrictions, so trust, collaboration, transparency and a shared purpose were foundational elements our organisations had to get right from the beginning. Hollard’s deep commitment to D&I also enabled us all to join forces while working flexibly, remotely and with a great deal of cognitive and neurodiversity with talent from different geographies, genders and lived experiences.” Four teams, one vision So, what needed to be done, who was responsible for what, and how was that speedy delivery achieved?

“The low-code configuration drops time to market, and its descriptive nature allowed Hollard to match the core requirements of brokers and clients,” says Shaji Sethu, DCT’s managing director Asia Pacific. “The platform being API-first also enabled Hollard to access all the core capabilities and plug them into the existing application landscape quickly.” DCT’s policy, billing and data hub solutions allowed Hollard to “focus on their partners and customers” and aligned with Hollard’s key objectives of simplifying its business and adapting faster to rapidly changing customer, partner and market demands. Duck Creek’s customer service values were also a great fit. “We ensure that our Australian team’s deep knowledge, expertise and experience of general insurance is available to our clients any time, anywhere, helping them transform their insurance vision into reality. These were all the qualities Hollard was looking for in this partnership.” In Precisely, Hollard found another very strong match: it had an experienced local team, understood the demands on insurers, could meet strict deadlines, and had a market-leading CCM platform.

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“The implementation with Hollard aligned with our purpose to help catalyse insurance ecosystems for the benefit of society,” says Browne. Measure twice, cut once There were several challenges to efficient and fast implementation, according to Browne. “First, preparing for the environment to be productive from day one in development and having the entire team engaged to assist in delivery. Second, ensuring the business was ready for the journey and prepared for ‘go live’ when the time arrived. Continuous testing and validation were also always top of mind, as was ensuring tech performance. Working with every stakeholder daily, across multiple geographies and time zones, was paramount to ensure the project stayed on track.”

Pandemic travel restrictions prevented them from operating a ‘war room’ to enable physical brainstorming to resolve issues. In its place, however, they had digital collaboration – and a ‘follow the sun’ right-shore model from Xceedance enabled the provision of services 24/7. It also helped that Smith was able to travel to India just two weeks before the borders closed, enabling him to meet key Xceedance personnel involved in the project, ensuring alignment on key messaging, commitment to the cause, and senior stakeholder buy-in. For Sethu, a ‘one team’ approach in which everyone came together as equal members allowed them to deliver on the deadline – and on their word. “Through this, a unique, trusting partnership was formed,” he says. Smith adds, “We had to embrace new tooling, new ways of working, and embrace an IT systems collaboration model that had not been significantly stressed or tested at scale before. I’m delighted that the dedication of Hollard employees and our partners helped us deliver on our commitments.”

Duck Creek Technologies (NASDAQ: DCT) is a leading provider of core system solutions to the P&C and general insurance industry. By accessing Duck Creek OnDemand, the company’s enterprise software-as-a-service solution, insurers are able to navigate uncertainty and capture market opportunities faster than their competitors. Duck Creek’s functionally rich solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite, and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand.

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Established in 1999, Hollard Insurance Company Pty Ltd (Hollard) is part of the Hollard International Group of companies and is an award-winning general insurer in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, the Hollard Group serves over 1.2 million customers and has 800 employees. Hollard underwrites a wide range of innovative insurance products, including motor, home, contents, pet and commercial insurance solutions through deep partnerships with leading Australian brands. Hollard’s unrelenting focus on diversity and inclusion, collaborative partnerships, and delivering great customer outcomes is at the heart of its business model, driven by its purpose of empowering a resilient future.

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Precisely is a leading provider of customer engagement solutions and data integrity software for insurers and other highly regulated organisations. By utilising the EngageOne platform, insurers can create scalable, seamless and personalised omnichannel communications and deliver seamless customer journeys in every channel, at any time. Precisely’s track record speaks for itself. Today, Precisely boasts over 12,000 enterprise customers in 100 countries worldwide, including 97 of the Fortune 100.

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Trevor Baldwin

Baldwin Risk Partners

Industry experts

Baldwin Risk Partner

Trevor Baldwin

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Trevor Baldwin

Baldwin Risk Partners

Industry Experts

are selling do so for a variety of reasons, including a desire to crystallize their investment – and likely single largest asset – at current market valuations, a lack of internal perpetuation and a recognized need for additional scale and resources.

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

12%

10%

All ADIs

Major Banks

Mutual Banks

7.3%

7.5%

3.6%

4.9%

11.3%

5.3%

3.8%

3.6%

3.0%

6.7%

3.8%

1.7%

7.0

Loan Portfolio Growth (2015-2019)

Baldwin Risk Partners

Trevor Baldwin

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Fast Facts

Gaining international experience and learning about different people and cultures

Tenure at current position

2017 - Present

Years of Experience

IN Partnership with

A business strategist and technology solutions specialist with more than 20 years' experience in organisational design, best practice delivery and general consulting, Jamie Smith has a verifiable history of success. His experience ranges from leading and growing a business from start-up to scale-up and sale to aligning operational efficiencies with corporate goals and managing complex functional projects. Smith was previously a partner at EY, along with founding and running his own consultancy. He is co-author of the inaugural InsurTech Ecosystem Report: InsurTech: Enabler of Disrupter?

CIO at Hollard

Jamie Smith

“We elected to migrate only operational data on renewal, rather than a ‘big bang approach’,” says Smith. “This has many benefits, including allowing us to configure our technology for the future rather than an historic back book. Implementing an orchestration layer to allow Duck Creek and legacy applications to work hand in hand negated the need for users to determine which system a customer record would reside in. A guiding principle of our rollout was customers and brokers should not be aware our back-end systems had changed.” The secrets to a great outcome? Forced on the partners by COVID, great communication is what ultimately underpinned the project’s success. Right from discovery phase, the partners liaised across time zones via MS Teams.

Xceedance is a global provider of strategic consulting and managed services, technology, data sciences, and block chain solutions to insurance organisations. Domiciled in Bermuda, with offices in the US, the UK, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Poland, India and Australia, Xceedance helps insurers launch new products, drive operations, implement intelligent technology, deploy advanced analytic capabilities, and achieve business process optimisation.

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Hollard CIO Jamie Smith offers three tips for anyone embarking on a similarly complex project:

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