SCOR calls on CGI France to develop Sar@, a reference tool for the pricing of substandard risk personal insurance

With 31 offices worldwide and active in more than 150 countries, SCOR is France’s largest reinsurance company and one of the largest in the world. Thanks to its technical innovations and high-quality service, the SCOR Group boasts a balanced business portfolio of damage, personal and special reinsurance. SCOR’s shares, which is traded on the SBF 120, Bloomberg European Insurance and Dow Jones STOXX stock exchanges, is listed in Paris, Frankfurt and New York. The share ownership of SCOR is widely diversified, with more than 30,000 shareholders in some 55 countries.

The Challenge
Prior to consulting CGI France (formerly IMRglobal), SCOR developed its substandard risk pricing using an application that was updated through the asynchronous transmittal of information. The system’s capability was stretched to the limit, particularly when it came to following the geopolitical developments in each of the 180 countries rated for political risks. It became imperative to obtain a modern, unique application that would respond to geopolitical changes in real time. The new system would also allow for improved customer service, with permanent updating and worry-free maintenance, not only for political risks, but also for all other risk factors.

SCOR wanted to develop a secure policy rating module and a complete documentary database on 3,500 illnesses, 1,500 professions, 600 sports activities, approximately 20 means of transport and 180 countries for the political risks. Covered in this, the Life Manual were death, disability and inability to work. SCOR also wanted to be able to integrate other rating manuals autonomously and at a reasonable cost.

The Strategy
The Sar@ tool, developed by CGI France, offered a solution through two applications: an extranet, which allows SCOR’s client life insurance companies to establish risk pricing, and an administrative application used by SCOR’s substandard risk analysis experts to define and maintain the pricing rules. Because it is updated in real time, Sar@ allows for the pricing of political risk in 180 countries. Coverage priced by Sar@ includes death, disability and inability to work. Sar@ is available in English, French Spanish, Italian and German. The efficiency of the system has allowed SCOR to quickly and inexpensively integrate sickness risk pricing for total and partial dependency, which constitutes the Dependency Manual and is currently available in the French version of Sar@. The addition of other coverage is already planned.

Developed entirely in Java from a CGI component-based system intended to improve the quality and speed of Internet developments, maintenance of the application is very easy.
The Sar@ project began in February 2000 and development lasted 15 months. The schedule and deadlines were completely respected.

The Technology

• CGI component-based system (25 business classes and 450 technical classes).
• HTML and Java (Swing), JSP Tomcat page generation motor with use of SSL protocol
• Web Apache server under Windows NT, administration and pricing rules storage server implemented under Sybase 7

The Results
Unique on the market, Sar@ is accessible 24/7 throughout the world in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German via the SCOR Web site or directly through the address http://www.sara.scor.com. This application has become a benchmark for personal insurance substandard risk pricing and information.
The use of Sar@, which is based on CGI’s component-based system, has allowed SCOR’s teams to significantly increase their productivity by managing a higher number of files. The enhancement and development of the pricing manuals can now be achieved rapidly and at a very competitive cost. With Sar@, SCOR has strengthened its customer service, and the addition of new manuals has solidified its already strong market position with respect to substandard risks.

“We chose CGI France because of the technological options it offered. Implementing 100% component-based Web architecture supported by market standards guarantees us good development potential for our application,” stated Béatrice Julienne, SCOR’s project manager for Sar@. “In addition, CGI’s iterative approach, separating the technical and functional aspects, provided us with rapid development and the ability forge a solid link between our insurance experts and our customers.”

SCOR’s satisfaction with the quality of service delivered by CGI France, its technical approach and competitive pricing during the Sar@ development, led it to award the French team with a new client server architecture (PowerBuilder) project known as LIRAS.