Van Ameyde achieves highest levels of customer satisfaction in Insurance Industry with agile approach from OutSystems.

The Challenge:

• Van Ameyde, a company of the Dutch Van Ameyde Group which operates directly in 16 European countries, manages the claims handling processes for approximately 350 insurance companies. Van Ameyde wanted to optimize its claims handling process and obtain full control over their resolution in order to provide customers with the best service and transparency levels in the market;
• Van Ameyde needed a unified web-based business application to replace several independent systems that were being used by each company's branch to handle claims, with the objective of making information available to all employees across Europe;
• The new application would have to provide employees with standard processes, and yet reflect each country’s specific legal, currency, and language requirements;
• Van Ameyde also had the strategic objective of ensuring that the new application would be continuously aligned with the business, allowing for future changes to be easily implemented, supporting the company’s planned growth.

The Solution:

Van Ameyde’s experience of complex projects in ever-changing and multi-integration environments led the company to search for an agile and flexible approach. After evaluating several technologies and vendors, Van Ameyde selected the OutSystems Agile Platform to deploy the ECHO (European Claims Handling Optimization) system, which:

• Is available to 600 employees from three departments that handle claims and work geographically dispersed, through VPN and MPLS connections. As the company expands, ECHO’s scope can be extended with no business or technological impact;
• Automatically triggers process handling according to each customer’s Service Level Agreement (SLA), as soon as an email is received from a customer;
• Provides standard end-to-end resolution flows which are tailored to specific regional requirements – supporting 16 countries, 12 languages, and 6 currencies;
• Includes management and operation reports to provide Van Ameyde customers with 24/7 access to detailed performance information; such as number of claims, their status, SLAs and progress;
• Allows digital file upload, ensuring that each process is fully documented. Users’ actions are logged and fully traceable;
• Centralizes all information related to claims handling, regardless of their location, nature, and country of origin of the people and insurance companies involved;
• Fosters collaborative work between branches, simplifying and accelerating the resolution of international processes;
• Is integrated with 5 modules of SAP to ensure full information alignment across departments, eliminate duplicate and error prone administrative tasks, and leveraging previous IT investments. 

Results:

• Competitive Advantage - Since the ECHO system was deployed, Van Ameyde has been able to provide its customers with added business value by delivering services more rapidly and ensuring an unprecedented level of visibility and control over the entire claims handling process;
• Full lifecycle support - The OutSystems Agile Platform supports all phases of the application’s lifecycle, from design to management and operation. Additional features can be added with minimal effort, ensuring that the application will continue to provide business value. This capability is essential for companies like Van Ameyde, operating in rapidly changing business environments;
• Agility - Defining all requirements upfront would have been impossible in such a complex project. The Agile Platform and OutSystems methodology allowed Van Ameyde to start with minimum requirements, evolving towards the final solution in several iterations. Users’ feedback was collected in a structured way, prioritized according to business value, and reflected in the application as the project progressed. This iterative approach was key to business alignment and the project’s success;
• Integration capability – OutSystems’ certified integration with SAP enabled a simpler and faster integration with this ERP, minimizing the complexity and risk of this project phase. 

About Van Ameyde:

The Van Ameyde Group specializes in international claims and risk management for major international insurance companies, captives and brokers, government agencies, and corporate and industrial clients including the energy sector, the shipping industry, ports and terminals. Van Ameyde represents clients throughout Europe, providing back-office services, financial management of claim portfolios including recovery, and handling the entire claims process. Internet insurers rely on Van Ameyde’s proven BPO services. In addition, the group conducts risk analysis, surveys and industrial valuation services for insurance and economic purposes, such as IFRS compliance. Independent process and file audits complete its service offering. Van Ameyde tailors services to customer requirements, allowing them to focus on their core business.

Visit Van Ameyde website