Traditional paper-based processes make placing business on the Lloyd’s of London market a ripe opportunity for digital process improvement. Tysers, a leading, independent Lloyd’s insurance broker, seized this opportunity by launching its “Tconnect” platform.
Developed on OutSystems and launched in 2021, Tconnect gives Tysers a competitive advantage—positioning the company for scalable growth, with digital efficiency and standardized processes that span multiple specialty insurance lines.
“Without OutSystems, Tconnect simply would not have happened. The speed of low-code development gave us the courage to experiment. An MVP delivered in four months showed the art of the possible, and we’ve never looked back.”
Tysers is a leading, independent Lloyd’s insurance broker that provides forward-thinking wholesale and direct-to-client risk transfer solutions. Headquartered in London with offices and associates worldwide and around 1,200 employees, Tysers trades in 140 countries and handles over £2.75bn of premium annually.
The company’s OutSystems journey started in late 2019 when the company acquired specialist broker RFIB, which had been using OutSystems for nearly a year. Angus Kennedy, previously CIO at RFIB and now CTO at Tysers, takes up the story.
“At RFIB, we hadn’t originally wanted to build an in-house application development team. But off-the-shelf insurance suites were a poor fit for our needs, which forced our hand.”
"We couldn’t justify hiring multiple full-stack developers and setting up a whole DevOps team. That’s why we looked at low-code platforms. We selected OutSystems because it suited the background of our technical team, and we felt it would not box us in."
In his new role as Chief Technology Officer at Tysers, Angus oversees the company’s digital strategy and change agenda. He and his team of four OutSystems developers had already proven the speed and flexibility of visual development at RFIB. And, as Tysers had no in-house developers—relying instead on packaged software and external consultants—the team was keen to prove its worth across the larger organization.
Speed-up development and improve agility
Scalability, integration, and security
Enable continuous deliveryWith multiple specialist insurance teams—many of which resulted from earlier acquisitions—Tysers had an excellent opportunity to standardize its business processes. And Angus knew that such standardization was a prerequisite for the company to digitally transform and scale more economically.
However, the first challenge was to get numerous autonomous business units to buy into the need for change.
“Creating a shared vision for a future state required that we show the art of the possible. So, we developed a digital MVP. That would have taken too long and cost too much via traditional development. Faster development with OutSystems made a test and learn approach affordable."
The development team built an MVP in four months that demonstrated how the risk placement process could be digitally streamlined. This included a modern front end, integration to core insurance systems, and the use of UiPath robotic process automation to bridge gaps where some of Tysers’ legacy systems lacked APIs.
Two of Tysers’ most significant insurance business lines—Marine and North American P&C—immediately recognized the benefits that this faster, highly automated approach could deliver. “These business lines were ideal early adopters,” explains Angus. “They had high volumes of comparatively simple transactions, so we’d be able to build out the solution quickly and get a fast return on investment.”
In the second half of 2020, Tysers extended the solution while ramping up the OutSystems development team to include a solution architect, two business analysts, a scrum master, seven developers, and two QA/testers. North American P&C went live at the end of 2020.
During the first half of 2021, the team made further enhancements to the system, and Tysers announced the launch of Tconnect in July 2021.
Insurance Redeveloped Systems iO Limited is a software company providing solutions for the specialist insurance market developed using the OutSystems low-code platform. We believe that low-code...
Learn more about Systems IO LimitedDescribed as a “cross-functional, cloud-based platform to consolidate processes and automate the end-to-end lifecycle of a policy,” Tconnect promises numerous benefits for customers and Tysers employees:
“We’ve made extensive use of OutSystems business process technology,” says Angus. “Tconnect gives us end-to-end visibility of what’s happening throughout the lifecycle of a policy, which is a leap forward compared to old manual processes that caused performance black holes for the business.”
"There are a lot of repeatable steps throughout the broking process. So, workflow is crucial to take new policies through various stages, including queries, checklists, legal reviews, and contract certainty checks. Tconnect provides both the workflow and the business controls we need for quality and compliance."
The overarching goal is to enable scalable growth. “Standard processes provide a basis for continuous improvement and growth,” says Angus. “Tconnect means Tysers can scale its operations with quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, all moving in the right direction. Low-code didn’t just mean we got to this point faster. Speed gave us permission to experiment. If we’d not had OutSystems, the project would probably never have got off the ground.”
Tysers estimates that it has already achieved a five percent efficiency saving in its broking operations team, saving 200 staff a total of 400 hours per week through streamlined processes.
Two perspectives on how Tysers digital self-sufficiency helps to future-proof the business come from its senior managers:
"By developing our technology in-house using OutSystems, we are future-proofing our systems and our business because we can build additional features quickly and efficiently."
"Tconnect positions us very well to integrate easily and effectively into the new Lloyds Blueprint 2 architecture as it rolls out, especially our ability to seamlessly ingest the new digital technical account."
Moreover, commenting on how self-sufficiency and using OutSystems has changed his work since 2019, Angus says, “I spend much less time dealing with suppliers and RFPs, and more time managing innovation. With OutSystems, when the business brings us new requirements, I can say ‘Yes’ much more often, and more quickly.”
An example of Tysers’ increased innovation capacity is a solution for real-time shipping risk pricing, which the company is launching. “We’ve served many of the world’s largest shipowners for decades,” explains Angus. “We expect to revolutionize how war risk shipping insurance is priced and sold, with innovative technology that incorporates real-time satellite ship location tracking. We’ll be able to dynamically price premiums that reflect real rather than assumed risk.”
Tysers plans to broaden this new proposition to cover other risk classes, such as shipping containers and trucks, and the insurer intends to white-label the product to broaden its market reach.
Over and beyond strategic projects such as Tconnect and real-time shipping insurance, Tysers’ OutSystems team has delivered numerous other applications. These include:
