ThoughtWorks helped an insurance solutions provider develop a complex broker management application called agencyPlus using Agile practices across a 65-person distributed team. The application provides rich functionality and is scalable, allowing brokers to adapt to changing needs. The client benefited from an innovative product brought to market quickly and new features are added based on changing requirements.

1. Business Critical Insurance
Broker Management Solution
ThoughtWorks helped an innovative insurance industry solutions
provider to develop a highly complex broker management application
– agencyPlus. Built using Agile best practices across a distributed
65-person team, agencyPlus is an incredibly functionally rich, flexible
and scalable insurance broker solution.
The Benefits
The Client • Insurecom got an incredibly
functionally rich, technically
Insurecom believes that general insurance broking is being held back by the dominance of software
complex application to market
solutions that are built on ageing technology. Most broker systems are based on architectures years in a time that many thought was
out of date, making it progressively harder for brokers to keep pace with the market. As the industry impossible.
consolidates, the lack of scalable products for the new class of large, highly-distributed corporate
intermediaries has opened up a significant opportunity. • Total transparency in
development process ensured
Insurecom’s goal is to become the market leader in developing and delivering truly innovative, total close collaboration and kept
broker solutions for the UK and North American general insurance intermediary market. They want to the client constantly updated
allow a forward-thinking broker to realise their full potential while lowering their cost of doing business on progress.
and allowing brokers to adapt rapidly to changing market needs. Insurecom is based in Bermuda, with
• Changes in requirements
principal offices in the UK and Canada.
were easily accommodated by
using the most innovative Agile
The Situation
best practices.
Insurecom was at risk of losing its 17% market share with its existing product offering in the UK. They
were constrained by the limitations of their old platform and were limited by the lack of responsiveness to
• ThoughtWorks approach to
market needs from their existing software, which they distribute under a license arrangement. In addition, offshore development projects
while Insurecom employs a large number of the industry’s leading software engineers, they did not have allowed the business and the
the capacity in-house to develop a new product of this size and complexity. development teams to drive
constant innovation throughout
The Challenge the project.
Insurecom wanted to build a brand new insurance broking platform that would offer a total solution to
the growing sector of large, consolidating intermediaries who own multiple brokers over multiple offices. • Automating build and
deployment and testing
The new platform needed to offer end-to-end large corporate broker functionality, be flexible and provided helped maximize
scalable, while benefiting from a robust Windows platform and cutting-edge technology. It had to offer efficiency and quality.
brokers maximum efficiency gains and offer intuitive functionality to enable all departments to work within
a single solution. The solution also had to offer a simple and effective method of integrating underwriting
business, and allow simple yet high performance e-commerce facilities.
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2. Business Critical Insurance Broking Solution
The primary challenge with building the product was the need and the UK helped to ensure the highest levels of communication.
to combine an offshore model in a highly collaborative way with
Support and Evolution
Insurecom’s experienced broker solutions team and in-house
After the first release of agencyPlus, work continued on new
developers. What’s more, Insurecom had no tolerance for failure on
features for subsequent releases. Getting the first release out was
the project; essentially developing a replacement solution for their
critical and the feedback from customers and Insurecom team
largest clients and prospects, as well as future-proofing the core of
helped define the priorities for further releases, ensuring that the
their business in a highly competitive landscape.
latest developments reflected the latest needs of customers.
Insurecom selected ThoughtWorks as a reliable partner to help get
A dedicated ThoughtWorks support team resolved production
the product to market as quickly as possible.
issues as they occurred and regular (need-based) support releases
Working Towards A Solution were provided while the major releases were in-progress.
Insurecom and ThoughtWorks worked very closely together
ThoughtWorks’ automated build and deployment pipeline practices
throughout the project which consisted of the following phases:
helped the team to manage several versions of the software
Inception simultaneously. This helped ensure stability for Insurecom and its
A combined Insurecom and ThoughtWorks team held a four-week customers while evolving the product.
project inception in the UK and built a shared understanding of the
agencyPlus vision and agreed detailed requirements. The team “Not only did we get a fantastic
constructed a project roadmap and development plan in these first
four weeks, as well as identifying and mitigating areas of technical
product to market in a short time
risk by undertaking “spikes” to glean a deeper understanding that embraces all the functionality
of the situation and possible solutions. ThoughtWorks business our clients need, we are adding
analysts stayed on-site at Insurecom for a further six weeks to
unique functionality that reflect
finalize requirements, while the initial development phase began in
Bangalore. the latest changes in a rapidly
evolving marketplace.”
Development Phillip Walter, CEO, Insurecom
The ThoughtWorks’ development team in India broke the project
into a number of small iterations, tackling the most important and Client Benefits
highest-risk areas of the system first. At the end of every week, A key feature of ThoughtWorks’ offshore software development
the functionality that had been developed was “showcased” by process is the high levels of transparency into progress. This project
videoconference to the Insurecom team. The Insurecom team was a massive undertaking for Insurecom and each week, a project
reviewed whether the functionality was in line with their expectations review meeting was held to discuss how quickly requirements were
and re-prioritized the functionality of the next iteration as needed. being delivered. Early on in the project, it was realized that the
complexity of some of the requirements had been under estimated
A great deal of focus was applied to making sure that
and this threatened to push the project off-track. Instead of finding
communication from the business to the development team and
this out too late to address it, detailed weekly information about
across the development team of 40 people worked as smoothly as
how quickly the project was delivering against how quickly the team
possible. Full use of WebEx and Instant Messenger was made and
had expected to deliver helped make it relatively straightforward
regular visits of ThoughtWorks and Insurecom staff between India
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3. Business Critical Insurance Broking Solution
to revisit the project roadmap and review certain requirements and Client Executive Quote
priorities. Changes in scope and prioritization made sure that the Phillip Walter, CEO of Insurecom gives his perspective: “Industry
project stayed on track and delivered against Insurecom’s business experts explained to us that it was not feasible to build a system
objectives. with this breadth and depth of functionality from the ground up.
We are competing with products that have taken years to develop,
ThoughtWorks’ approach allows the easy accommodation of
many of them over 20 years. Not only did we get a fantastic product
change to suit changes in business priorities. Initially agencyPlus
to market in a short time that embraces all the functionality our
was being developed for small brokers. However, Insurecom found
clients need, we are adding unique functionality that reflects the
great interest in the product towards the end of the delivery cycle
latest changes in a rapidly evolving marketplace. This includes
from medium and large brokers as well, introducing more functional
automated regulator compliance, automated business processes,
and technical requirements. The product roadmap was easily
transactions on-line with customers and partners, and new
changed to deliver the new requirements in subsequent releases as
innovative products to maintain competitive advantage. We are now
priorities evolved.
making the largest sales in the Company’s history. ThoughtWorks
The Future has been an instrumental partner in the success of agencyPlus
Released in April 2007, agencyPlus is unrivalled in the market in and helped bring our vision for an exciting and innovative product
terms of breadth and depth, and has received excellent feedback to market. I will whole-heartedly recommend the ThoughtWorks’
from customers and staff alike. approach to anyone.”
Insurecom is highly innovative and ideas-driven and is constantly
searching for new ways to deliver value to its clients. During the ThoughtWorks is a registered trademark of ThoughtWorks, Inc.
development process, Insurecom adopted ThoughtWorks’ Agile All other brand names, product names, or trademarks
practices and philosophy. Insurecom and ThoughtWorks are now belong to their respective holders.
working together on new and innovative features for agencyPlus
© 2008 ThoughtWorks, Inc. All rights reserved.
that will help maximize the competitiveness of Insurecom’s clients.
www.thoughtworks.com