A leading Lloyd's syndicate known for its strong financial performance and commitment to innovation, underwrites a diverse portfolio of risks across multiple classes, including Property, Casualty, Specialty, and Marine & Energy. With ambitious growth targets and a focus on exceeding competitive market performance, this syndicate recognized the need to modernise its underwriting operations to enhance efficiency and agility. However, the company's legacy technology infrastructure, with its disparate systems and manual processes, presented a significant obstacle to achieving its strategic objectives of expanding into new markets and launching innovative insurance products.

Challenge

The leading Lloyd's syndicate faced significant challenges with its existing underwriting systems. These disparate systems, inherited through acquisitions and organic growth, resulted in data silos, leading to duplicated efforts, manual reconciliation of information, and difficulties in generating accurate reports. This hindered operational efficiency, increased costs, and limited the company's ability to gain a comprehensive view of its business.

Furthermore, the legacy systems relied heavily on manual processes, including data entry and underwriting reviews. This resulted in slow quote turnaround times exceeding three days, impacting broker satisfaction and hindering the company's ability to respond quickly to market demands.

Specifically, the client needed to:

• Consolidate three separate legacy systems: These systems operated in silos, creating data inconsistencies, reporting difficulties, and manual workarounds.

• Reduce quote turnaround times: The existing process was cumbersome, taking over three days to generate a quote, impacting broker satisfaction and business agility.

• Enhance operational efficiency: Manual processes and data re-entry across systems led to increased operational costs and potential for errors.  

• Facilitate future product development and geographic expansion: The legacy infrastructure lacked the flexibility to support new product lines and expansion into new markets.

The Buckhill Solution

Buckhill partnered with this renowned Lloyd's syndicate to deliver a comprehensive digital transformation solution centered around Buckhill's C2MS platform. This involved:  

• System Consolidation: Migration of all existing data and functionalities from three legacy systems into a single, unified platform powered by C2MS. This provided a single source of truth and streamlined operations.

• API-led Integration: Development of a seamless API layer to power the client's Underwriting portal. This enabled real-time data exchange and facilitated integration with other critical business systems, including third-party data enrichment and marketing platforms.

• Automated Workflow: Implementation of automated workflows for quote generation, policy issuance, and claims processing, significantly reducing manual intervention and accelerating turnaround times.

• Data Enrichment Integration: Integration with key partners to provide data enrichment services, improving underwriting accuracy and risk assessment.

• Marketing Support Integration: Integration with marketing platforms to automate marketing campaigns and enhance broker engagement.

• Claims Functionality: Expansion of the platform to include comprehensive claims management functionality, further streamlining operations and improving customer service.

We adopted a phased approach to the implementation, beginning with the migration of the core underwriting data and functionalities from the legacy systems to the C2MS platform. This ensured minimal disruption to the syndicate's ongoing operations. Next, we collaborated closely with the client's team to develop the API layer, ensuring seamless integration with the Opal Underwriting portal and other critical business systems. Throughout the project, we prioritised user experience and collaboration, working closely with the client's underwriters and brokers to ensure the new platform met their needs and exceeded their expectations.

Results

The digital transformation initiative delivered significant improvements for the leading Lloyd's syndicate:

• Dramatic Increase in Premium: The client achieved a 71.4% increase in premium since 2020, exceeding $140 million per annum. This significant increase in premium is attributed to a combination of factors, including improved operational efficiency, faster quote turnaround times that led to higher conversion rates, and the ability to rapidly launch new products and expand into new geographic markets.

• Enhanced Broker Engagement: Over 750 brokers actively use the client's Underwriting platform, attracted by its ease of use, speed, and efficiency.

• Reduced Quote Turnaround Times: Quotes that previously took over three days can now be completed and bound in minutes, significantly improving broker satisfaction and responsiveness.

• Improved Operational Efficiency: Automation and streamlined workflows have reduced manual effort, minimised errors, and freed up staff for higher-value tasks.

• Award-Winning Platform: The client's Underwriting platform was recognised with the "Digital Initiative of the Year 2024" award, highlighting its innovative approach and industry impact.

Technology

1. C2MS Platform: Buckhill's C2MS platform provided the foundation for this transformation. Its robust architecture, scalability, and API-first approach enabled seamless integration, automation, and future-proofing.

2. API Layer: The API layer facilitated real-time data exchange between the Opal Underwriting portal and core systems, including third-party data enrichment and marketing platforms.

3. Cloud-Based Infrastructure: Leveraging cloud technologies ensured scalability, security, and high availability for the platform.

Conclusion

By partnering with Buckhill, this leading Lloyd's of London syndicate successfully modernised its underwriting operations, achieving significant efficiency gains, enhanced broker engagement, and impressive business growth. This case study demonstrates the transformative power of a unified digital platform and API-led integration in the insurance industry. It highlights how a strategic approach to technology adoption can empower insurers to optimise operations, enhance customer service, and drive business success in a rapidly evolving market.