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Ruschlikon Expands Global Reach in 2015; Use of ACORD Standards Rises 20%

Ruschlikon, the global community of insurers, brokers and reinsurers with a mission to optimize industry administrative costs and enhance client services, announced achieved several important milestones in 2015 — a year that saw an expansion of its global footprint.

Ruschlikon* said the milestones include:

• The number of accounting and claims transactions being electronically processed using ACORD** standards grew globally by 20 percent to around 1.2 million;
• The global community of insurers, brokers and reinsurers now totals more than 100 implementations across six continents in the re/insurance industry across all types of business.
• An expansion of the community with a number of new relationships with insurers, from its historical membership base of brokers and reinsurers.

“In 2015, Ruschlikon continued to systematically deliver and track benefits as a base for ongoing financial and operational improvements. These benefits range from faster payment or the elimination of unmatched cash to more streamlined and efficient processes, responding to the need to continuously reduce administrative costs,” according to Régis Delayat, Ruschlikon chair and SCOR CIO.

“Another important aspect is Ruschlikon’s contribution to data quality, required not only for operational efficiency but also for accurate business decisions and regulatory compliance,” Delayat added.

Ruschlikon Technology Provider Group

In late 2015, the Ruschlikon Technology Provider Group was formed with the primary purpose of working with Ruschlikon to increase, broaden and simplify global implementations of ACORD messages and Ruschlikon best practices.

As top-tier providers of e-processing services for re/insurance, members of the group are: CSC, EBIX, Effisoft, INVEOS, msg, NIIT, Pro., Sequel, Scyllogis, Trace, WebConnectivity, Xchanging and Xuber, said Ruschlikon in a statement.

James Willison, managing director of WebConnectivity, and Ian Summers, business development director at Sequel Business Solutions, were elected as co-chairs of the group.

London Market Target Operating Model

Ruschlikon has formally started to work with the London Market Target Operating Model (TOM), a modernization project that is aiming to make it easier to do business with the London market.

One area of focus for Ruschlikon has been to ensure process and data consistency between Ruschlikon and electronic accounting for the London Market Bureau business, working with the Central Services Refresh Programme (CSRP), the statement from Ruschlikon said.

Another area of focus is to help with the development of ACORD standard placing messages, which would be globally applicable. The TOM-Ruschlikon working group has representatives from a variety of geographies and business lines.

“As well as high level meetings between the Ruschlikon Steering Group and leaders of the London Market TOM, many Ruschlikon members are involved in more detailed TOM workshops, working groups and management groups,” said the statement from Ruschlikon.

* Ruschlikon aims to further automate back office processes by implementing best practice processes based on ACORD message standards for re/insurance and commercial business. The Ruschlikon Steering Group is composed of AIG, Aon Benfield, Guy Carpenter, Munich Re, SCOR, Swiss Re, Willis Towers Watson and XL Catlin.

** ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is a global, nonprofit organization serving insurance and related industries. ACORD facilitates the development of open consensus data standards and standard forms, and works with its members and partner organizations to drive the implementation of those standards.

Source: Ruschlikon