When Howden wanted to enhance its agility to further improve client service, it looked no further than Xuber, its incumbent partner for Brokasure Desktop, to provide it with solutions that transformed some manually intensive tasks.

The Customer

Founded in 1994 with just one office, Howden Broking Group has extended its reach as a global provider of specialist

insurances to have over 40 offices in 22 countries today. Awarded Insurance Broker of the Year in 2011, Howden has

a strong reputation for understanding its clients’ in depth wholesale and reinsurance requirements and delivering

exceptional service, from initial negotiations right through to the settlement of claims. Used by particular divisions

within Howden Insurance Brokers Ltd for many years, Brokasure Desktop is part of a software family that can

automate the entire insurance life cycle for international intermediary insurance firms around the globe.

Xuber Case Study

Xuber and Howden Insurance Brokers Limited

We’re not so different.

The Xuber Solution

eStatements

The comprehensive Insurance Broking Accounts (IBA) ledger incorporates key facilities aimed at ledger control and bad debt exposure. eStatements reduced the time for Howden to prepare and distribute statements, which improved the flexibility of service Howden was able to provide its clients.

SID Reporting Tool

This tool provides the ability for Howden to extract critical information from a central SQL database for comprehensive management reporting without reducing the performance of the processing application. The tool enables ad-hoc queries or scheduled reports to be built quickly and uses real time data from the MI SQL database, which is subject to daily integrity checks to ensure the MI data is in sync with the detail contained within Brokasure.

“The reporting tool provides us with the ability to easily perform simple ad-hoc enquiries and searches from complex reporting without the need for specialised IT technical knowledge. We can now see information electronically in a variety of formats and distribute this quickly to our management or divisional teams as required”, commented Hobbs. “The tools main benefit for Howden is that it provides the means for people without an IT technical background to accurately provide up to date information as and when required. Additionally, reports can be published to a web based application, meaning they can reach a wide audience, wherever they are situated. And when we don’t have the resources to do that, Xuber does it for us”.

End Processing

In addition to running and maintaining Brokasure Desktop, and providing tailored modifications to the solution, Xuber also performs Howden’s Brokasure Desktop operational tasks. “This time-critical processing, which Xuber performs at the end of each day, month and year, enables our in-house IT resources to concentrate on other areas”, commented Hobbs.

The Benefits

Cost Savings

By automating the creation and production of its accounting statements, Howden has realised cost savings in both employee productivity and physical resources. “eStatements has enabled us to save not only on postage and stationery, it has reduced the workload of a senior IBA technician’s in relation to these tasks significantly”, confirmed Hobbs.

Enhanced Customer Service

Howden can now automate the frequency of its statements, giving their clients an up to date view of their situation. “eStatements has made a huge difference to the IBA team, releasing the pressure and helping them to provide a more accurate service to our clients with real-time statement information. In addition, SID is very agile and fast in producing reporting in a format that can be tailored with our own corporation details and sent to whomever requires the information.”

Responsive

Xuber employs experienced insurance professionals, which means its clients benefit from working with a partner that understands

its exact needs. “Our account manager is an ‘industry expert’, and his experience and knowledge means that any requested changes to our Brokasure solutions are incorporated within a very short space of time”, said Hobbs.

Accuracy of Information

Prior to implementing SID, Howden used to manually run system default reports. “We can now run pre-built reports around aged debt, for example. At the push of a button we get a clear picture of specific, real time data which arms our finance team with the information they need to concentrate efforts in this area, making the process more effective and efficient for all parties concerned”.

Partner Confidence

Brokasure Desktop has been a market leading product for over 30 years, proving its continued worth to the insurance market. “By meeting changes demanded by the market such as regulatory requirements or integration with Microsoft platforms, we can see that Xuber is committed to keeping their product up to date and relevant, which is important to us”, said Hobbs.

The Future

Howden actively works with Xuber to enhance Brokasure Desktop through a joint development initiative. “We have a say in how the software is developed, and work as an integral part of a team that makes sure that the solution supports our objectives”, concluded Hobbs.

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The Challenge

Managing a number of varied risks for clients, Howden needs to produce a large volume of client account statements on a regular basis, all of which were manually produced and printed every month, and then posted to clients.

“Producing statements for our clients was a time consuming task,” commented Jackie Hobbs, Business Process & Systems Implementation Manager for Howden. “We had to manually raise and print each individual statement and then post it out. Special stationery was required and the relevant printer was out of action for other users for an entire day each month. We needed a solution that

The Approach

As its incumbent software solution for a large proportion of the business, Brokasure Desktop delivers several different modular products.

“Seamless integration of any new tool is of significant importance to us and Xuber, and they were able to enhance our existing solution to address our challenges,” said Hobbs. “Xuber developed a new module (eStatements) for a sister company, which they then adapted to suit our requirements, thereby allowing us to automate our manual statement processing, and together with a reporting tool provided by Xuber (SID), allowed us to manipulate and report on our data”.

would help us to move away from paper-based manual tasks to one that used real-time data more effectively, thereby providing a better service for our clients”.

Another challenge facing Howden was how to provide management and the business with accurate and up to date information quickly in a variety of formats. As Hobbs outlined, “We found it difficult and time consuming to turn our data into flexible and useful information”.

Howden needed to harness the power of its data to help its operational team drive benefits for the company.

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