Letters (March 01, 1999)

Dear editor:

The following correspondence has been sent by Noble Insurance, an Ontario-based insurance brokerage, to Robert Gunn, president of Royal Insurance Company of Canada, Noel Walpole, president of Economical Insurance Group, Robert Landry, president of personal finance solutions at Zurich Canada and George Cooke, president of Dominion of Canada Insurance Company. The letter was forwarded to the CSIO for distribution to members and to Canadian Underwriter for publication:

Dear Sirs:

After much deliberation, and thought-provoked reflection of our EDI accomplishments to date, it is with great regret that our conclusions will result in Howard Noble Insurance abandoning all further efforts to continue utilizing the CSIO upload functions to forward new business applications to you, effective immediately.

It bewilders the writers, that in an age when we are inundated with information for a new century, the industry in which we survive is without technical advantage. We exist in a vacuum of old thinking and poor choices. We are unable to foster a common will that could bring us to a mutually beneficial solution. In the meantime, brokers accept little revenue for much work (average revenue for premium-generating endorsements over a one year period amounts to $1.70 per endorsement – excluding all non-premium endorsements), and companies speak of ‘host-to-host’, call ‘our hotline’, and other single-minded, company specific solutions.

The demise of The Synchron Project, beyond the loss of much overdue collective thinking on issues of EDI and technology for our time, said much of the ability and sensibilities of the individuals and entitles in an industry formed of partnerships. Pitting company against company, association versus association, vendor against vendor, with brokers maybe or maybe not becoming reasonably informed about the process and the technology – is it surprising this initiative failed? And where do we go from here? Did we learn from the failure and forge ahead – believing that a common solution – single entry, multiple company interface, was still a reality we could achieve? Or, did we retreat to our respective corners, lick our wounds, and quietly agree to stop the fight. CSIO new business upload, in its current form, is not the solution. It is unwieldy and due to an excess of company differences, unmanageable in a multi-location to multi-company environment. The evolution of this functionality has not resulted in cost-savings for either partner and no added efficiency seems evident to our brokerage.

Rather, the process requires skilled insurance professionals to dedicate their time into understanding coding and company system differences, in a process riddled with errors and unexplained delays. Customer service representatives and producers are expected to comprehend and complete this process, in addition to honing their sales and services skills and maintaining educational standards. Is this the reality we envisioned for SEMCI – the leading edge technology that will take us into Y2K to rival the competition and come out winning?

If the solution were easy, we would have overcome the problem sometime ago. It may be perceived as some form of heresy to surrender, especially since we have long supported the ideal and process of EDI, including new business upload. Beyond the immediate business case, which we can no longer ignore, being a participant in raising the bar on our current status, and potentially compel ALL partners, including our associations and governing entities, to strive for an advanced, efficient, REAL edi solution that will work for our INDUSTRY, is a challenge we are ready to face.

As we embark on a new century, let’s not continue to settle; rather, we can work together in a spirit of partnership, toward the advancement of EDI solutions, for the sake of our industry now, and into the future.

Respectfully,

Wayne Noble

President, Noble Insurance

Laura Watson

Operations Manager, Noble Insurance