The basic business model for the insurance industry hasn’t changed since it was invented: Customers pay you to assume their risk of various hazards, and you hope you bring in more in premiums than you pay out in claims.

To control costs, many large insurers rely on independent brokers to sell their insurance products and represent the insurance company to their customers. One of the world’s largest insurers, AXA, is no exception, with a network of over 3,000 brokers.

But not long ago, AXA’s relationship with its brokers was fraying. To get customer claims information, brokers had to spend valuable time on the phone, waiting to speak to a member of AXA’s overburdened customer service team. There was no online claims management tool for brokers.

What’s more, AXA’s claims management backend was an aging legacy application that was consuming most of the IT team’s time and budget to maintain.

Time for Digital Transformation

AXA knew it needed a digital transformation of its broker relationship processes, but it had limited time and resources to make this happen. In searching for a solution, AXA’s leadership and other stakeholders asked themselves the hard questions that must precede any digital transformation, such as:

• How can we gracefully migrate from our legacy systems to something more modern, scalable, and sustainable?
• What technology stack will enable us to provide broker self-service and relieve the over-taxed customer service team?
• What features are needed to deliver a positive broker experience?
• How can we do all this without adding high-priced development headcount or contractors?

The Solution: OutSystems

The approach that met all of AXA’s digital transformation needs was the OutSystems rapid application development platform. With OutSystems, AXA was able to deploy an environment in which its existing IT staff could develop new systems and applications without neglecting its ongoing legacy support tasks.

As a result, AXA realized numerous benefits, such as:

• Integration with their legacy systems, with a long-term goal of retiring those systems
• An open-standard platform that didn’t lock them into a specific vendor’s technology
• A scalable solution that grows as they add brokers to the network
• Better broker satisfaction and retention

AXA was able to design, develop, and deploy a new broker claims management portal in three months. The portal gives brokers access to claims information 24/7 from desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Further, AXA’s customer service team is now able to focus on issues that need hands-on attention and leave routine queries to the brokers.

The T4S Partners Way

At T4S Partners, we live for the opportunity to help clients realize their digital transformation goals. We go beyond the technical nuts and bolts to focus on business processes and uncover the connection between digital maturity and financial performance. As long-standing OutSystems partners, we know how to leverage the rapid application development platform to get the best results for our clients.

If your legacy systems and processes are holding back your organization from its digital aspirations, we’d like to hear from you. Contact us today to learn whether, and how, a rapid application development platform can help you reach your goals.