On April 12, 2019, the Association of Insurers, the NVGA, SIVI Foundation and software vendors, including ANVA and Solera, signed a letter of intent to start improving data quality in the insurance industry. In conversation with Jaap de Louw (director of intermediary distribution at Avéro Achmea) and Jorg Roodbeen (CEO at Klap Insurance Broker), we talk about the need for this improvement.
In 2013, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) conducted an assessment in which a review of reports showed that insurers in the proxy channel did not meet the requirements around data reporting. Besides the importance of maintaining control over data quality, one must also be able to perform portfolio management properly," Jaap de Louw starts. Maintaining data quality is necessary not only to comply with the review by DNB, but also to be able to provide proper feedback to an insurer as a proxy.
Because of this observation, the outsourcing insurers started forming the Managing General Agents Data Quality Working Group in 2014 to reduce the then 14 million under-recognized data issues as much as possible. This involved completing, for example, a catalog value belonging to a car insurance policy or a zip code to a home insurance policy. This type of hard, missing data prevented a reinsurer from determining cumulation risk and an insurer from meeting its obligation in the risk report to DNB. Jaap: "Despite the fact that we were able to solve a huge number of data issues in more than three years, the cooperation from the industry was still too non-committal. With this message I went back to the Association and the NVGA in 2017. A lot of energy was expended at the time and we were able to reduce some 60 percent, but we would not reach the finish line this way."
Project UIV is not the first trajectory to focus on data quality within the insurance industry. "The conviction of all parties in the chain and the belief in sustainable survival is what makes this trajectory different from others," Jorg Roodbeen says. "That cannot be done from one side, we need all parties for that. Moreover, regardless of political interests, we want to solve the problem in a sustainable way once and for all. Our ideas, plans and observations have been worked out in a final design of the foundation and financing." By providing insight into what the UIV project entails and how much time and resources it costs, an objective formula was used to convert the total amount into an amount per participant. Jorg: "On this elaboration, almost all insurers and Managing General Agents have indicated their contribution. In addition, system houses are investing in adapting the software. I am pleased to see that the proxy market recognizes that this is a contribution we have to make and that this is value for money".
ANVA is an important party in the elaboration of the route within this program. Jaap: ''ANVA's director Roel van Dijk hooked up very constructively with the development of Stichting SIVI at the beginning of this route, which was great! Because of this quick connection, we soon decided that we could also approach the other system houses. We greatly appreciate the collaborations with system houses. We realize very well that we are making a big call on everyone's flexibility and annual calendar."
That Jaap at the start of the Managing General Agents Data Quality Working Group did not expect the progress of the UIV project is logical. "Still this collaboration feels like an intellectual challenge and I think my fellow foundation board members feel the same way. I am proud of the results we have achieved so far and the many successes that I am convinced will follow. This trajectory is going to be very effeminate". Jorg concurs: "Initially, it feels like a lot of work that wasn't asked for. Primarily it provides us all with a sustainable proxy market with a future, that seems to me the most fundamental thing. Moreover, it has become part of the quality standardization of the NVGA. So don't wait any longer, start tomorrow and take a disciplined approach!".
