EquiSoft
Built to Address the Needs of the Insurance Sector

Some of the most common challenges in the present Oracle landscape are inflexible and outdated legacy systems, the duplication of systems across lines of business leading to unnecessarily high operational costs, the recruitment of quality IT and operational resources and a high level of dependence on external vendors to maintain systems. The inability to upgrade to newer versions of the software due to the high level of customization required is a related common challenge.

Additionally, most companies have systems for individual and group lines of business, same situation for life and annuities. This leads to unnecessary high operational costs. To make it worse, many depend on external vendors to maintain their systems.

EquiSoft is the only specialized Oracle Insurance Policy Admin (OIPA) system integrator. As a result of successfully implementing the OIPA system since 2004, they have developed the largest and most experienced team of OIPA experts in the marketplace. The firm’s industry-leading team includes the best subject matter experts (including actuaries) and technical OIPA experts.

“Over the years, we have implemented pretty much all types of complex individual and group life and annuity products in multiple languages and currencies. We are currently implementing the Oracle solutions in four countries. We have a center of excellence model, where multiple teams are working together, sharing expertise and optimizing resources allocation. For a successful implementation, the team needs to have access to all platform experts collaborating. Each project is different and requires thinking out-of-the-box. We believe that proximity to our customers is also very important in the success of the projects,” says Luis Romero, CEO of the firm.

Customizing for the OIPA

EquiSoft has developed an implementation methodology specific to OIPA. The OIPA rules based engine allows the firm to quickly deliver a system that the insurer can start testing.

Having the users of the system involved in early stages ensures that the implementation is a company project, and no longer an IT project. Also, mentoring the insurer on the system early in the implementation process ensures that they fully understand the strengths of the system and that they fully leverage all functionality.

The firm has also developed accelerators to help with integrations: testing tools, rate loader, migration tools, disconnected calculation engine and others. Also, it has developed configuration templates, like a commissions template, to complete Oracle product templates. These strategies have led to reduced cost for our clients and have allowed EquiSoft to maintain our competitive advantage.

“Additionally, EquiSoft has developed an illustration system, Insurance Elements, that leverages the OIPA rules based calculation engine, also offered as a standalone tool. EquiSoft’s Insurance Elements extends OIPA to offer illustration capabilities using the same configuration. This dramatically enhances the speed to market of new insurance products, while reducing the cost. The tool is marketed by EquiSoft as a standalone illustration tool, using the calc engine of OIPA, or as a companion tool to OIPA,” adds Luis.

Roadmap for Equisoft

Moving forward the firm expects a significant growth. With the U.S. market is really coming back and, as companies are becoming leaner, they are looking for modern yet mature solutions that can help grow their business. The Canadian market will go through a major tax regulation change in the next three years, requiring massive investment. “I believe many companies will decide to invest in new technologies instead of their existing legacy systems. Latin America will benefit from a dramatic growth of its middle class population. Furthermore, their existing back office systems are aging and cannot sustain the volume and are not flexible enough. The same situation applies to all emerging markets,” says Luis. Hence the firm is already expanding in Latin America and South Africa.