ProductWriter Benefits

The benefits of the ProductWriter approach are:

Rapid speed to market

• New products can be quickly and efficiently brought to market
• Products can be easily amended to support market changes
• ProductWriter provides a more reliable, simpler and quicker way of developing and maintaining products by reading in data from third party actuarial software e.g. EMB Rate Assessor
• Products can be defined by business staff, rather than IT specialists (Polaris provides regular training courses)

Flexibility

• It supports the entire business cycle – quotes, new business, mid term adjustments and renewals
• It can be used for the entire spectrum of insurances from high volume products – e.g. motor – and specialist ones – e.g. directors & officers insurances
• Modularity: Users do not have to replace entire systems to use the ProductWriter software suite, only the product definition and rating facilities
• Flexibility. One ProductWriter product can cater for multiple distribution channels and behave differently in each channel
• The ability to define any product either from a Polaris or custom data dictionary

Control

• One method of product definition can be used throughout a company since the RTE (the Polaris rating engine) is designed to be integrated into other systems
• High levels of product security and privacy are provided
• User repository

Cost effective

• The solution has proven to be highly cost-effective to licence and to use
• Users can vary features of their schemes (e.g. rates or process rules) by transaction date, which reduces maintenance costs and increases speed to market
• The RTE seamlessly integrates into existing systems with no changes necessary to the user interfaces
• A significant annual investment programme adds new features in line with business demands

Proven and reliable

• The RTE has been successfully deployed in many environments – brokers, insurers, websites, extranets, call centres, branches and sales forces’ laptops
• It is proven at high volumes

Business Classes Developed

Below are some of the business classes for which ProductWriter products have been built by clients. To date, due to the flexibility of ProductWriter, there has not been a product class which ProductWriter has not been able to cater for.

The ProductWriter Toolset

The components of the ProductWriter toolset shown in the diagram are described below.

1. Data Dictionary

ProductWriter is available with a suite of data dictionaries in the UK and Ireland that allow licensees to build products in any of the following business lines

• Private motor, including small commercial and motorcycle
• Household, including ancillary classes such as pets and small craft
• Commercial, including risks varying from tradesman to commercial combined.

The market lists – e.g. vehicle make and models – are provided with each dictionary and updates are provided by Polaris on a monthly basis.

These dictionaries are developed and maintained by Polaris with amendments, for example, adding new market list values (e.g. new occupation) or new objects being added (e.g. the properties to underwrite PHI) upon request by licensees.

All UK and Irish market data dictionaries are supplied with a skeleton scheme, which is a framework for insurers to build products. It contains examples including acceptance, referral, declinature, endorsement, premium quote breakdown, notes and excesses. These rules can be amended and copied by the insurers to perform all the validation, rating and to output the terms and premium for all transactions (e.g. new business, adjustment or renewal). The skeleton scheme greatly simplifies product building.

The Dictionary Extension Toolset (DET) allows for an existing Polaris dictionary to be extended in-house. A user can add additional data items which can then be implemented in to their products.
To further improve flexibility, Polaris has extended ProductWriter to permit the creation of new custom dictionaries based on XML message schemas.

2. Groups

Groups allow the user to allocate their own classifications to code list values (for example grouping occupations with similar risk profiles) which can then be referred to within the product rules. It is also possible to set up free format groups, e.g. age or sum insured bands. Groups can be used as acceptance criteria in the rules and also within tables.

3. Tables

Tables are multi-dimensional sets of data, usually containing rates, excesses or text, which can be referred to within the product rules for acceptance or rating. A table will link two or more groups – for example occupation and car groups.

4. Rules

Product rules are built in an easy to understand language with no IT or programming knowledge required. The rules control the products behaviour.

5. Forms

ProductWriter is equipped with a tool to build forms, the documents then form part of the distributed product and can be printed at point of sale e.g. motor schedule.  Companies which have already implemented their own print facilities can use these instead of those provided by ProductWriter if they wish.

6. Testing tools

ProductWriter provides a full suite of testing tools (individual and batch). Import and export tools simplify the comparison of results and make it possible to build consistent test packs where the expected results are documented.

7. Repository

The Repository enables users to centrally store and manage the ProductWriter files in a controlled and secure environment and provides an audit trail of components changed.

How do I obtain ProductWriter?

Contact Polaris for more information.
Please use the contact form here.