Q: What is the SurSITE^® Framework?

A: SurSITE^® is a complete end-to-end reinsurance support environment for the insurance and reinsurance industry. SurSITE^® consists of a robust framework of Web-enabled multi-language, multi-currency functional business and processing servers. SurSITE^® is a major business process enhancer for insurers, reinsurers, large insurance groups, MGA’s and consortia. It improves the quality, consistency, and accuracy of work performed and it positions top management to significantly and measurably trim down expenses for reinsurance administration and reduce errors. The primary framework includes the following SurSITE^® servers:

• Contract Management Server ("CMS")
• Technical Accounting Management Server ("TAMS")
• Business Intelligence Server ("BIS")
• Enterprise Integration Server ("EIS")

The SurSITE^® system is based on Microsoft’s flexible .NET technology and has a strong object-oriented design. Hence, the SurSITE^® platform allows us to rapidly conform to evolving reinsurance contract combinations; add new premium calculations and loss allocation methods, and in general, extends and customizes its reinsurance contract management and technical accounting support to accommodate very specific business needs.

Q: What do the SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS servers do?

A: SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS suite of servers for reinsurance manages complex reinsurance contract combinations throughout the entire reinsurance contract workflow from assumed and ceded to retroceded business. The core servers and services are:

• SurSITE^® CMS addresses organization and maintenance of all data pertaining to complex contracts, including business rules, contract parties, mapping and workflows.
• TAMS is the acronym of the SurSITE^® Technical Accounting Management Server, which is the real power behind our solution. TAMS automates calculations and generates transactions for premiums, commissions, and claims based on events and transactions at the original policy level; it also manages and automates generation of Statements of Account, Reinsurance Claim Notifications and Loss Recovery Notices to all reinsurance participants behind each reinsurance contract in force. SurSITE^® provides the option to import detailed information pertaining to an original policy, claim, claimant and occurrence through the Enterprise Integration Server.
• The Business Intelligence Server generates real-time reports on demand with drill down capabilities allowing a user to begin his/her review at the Cedant or Book-of-Business level and thereafter gradually drill down to each following level based on each report’s specific configuration.
• Electronic Forms offer a convenient method to quickly define a complete reinsurance program with multiple contracts based on negotiated terms without using manual UI entries in the Contract Management Server. Once the electronic form is completed; the system automatically creates all defined contracts including specific details associated with each individual contract type and technical accounting method within the CMS server through InfoPath-based electronic forms. Definition and the original creation of multiple reinsurance contracts for an entire reinsurance program can’t be much easier.
• Enterprise Integration Server manages data input to TAMS from multiple policy and claims management systems through XML, Web API & User Interface. It represents a core component for integration and deployment of the solution into an existing IT infrastructure.
• TAMS Export Services provides export of data for creation of scheduled bordereaux, claims notifications, loss recovery notices, statutory and management analysis and reports, export of data to MS Excel for “What-if-Scenarios” and electronic invoices to “interact” with a company’s choice of financial accounting system.

Q: What reinsurance process support is provided by the SurSITE^® solution?

A: The SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS solution offers an organization the ability to streamline and automate many processes in a unique and cost efficient manner normally not possible in a legacy environment. Thus, SurSITE^® users can configure a business processing environment that best suits their needs rather than being “forced” to adhere to process limitation of an older legacy system or client/server environments.

Furthermore, the system allows a re/insurance group to assume business from multiple sources and/or subsidiary companies as the case may be into several Book-of-Business contracts at a corporate level and therewith gaining control of all assumed and ceded to retroceded business throughout the entire organization. The book-of-business concept offers an organization the possibility to invite a third-party company to participate at the book-of-business level which might be desired for certain business entities such as a facultative business unit that needs committed market capacity as a lead underwriter, or where one insurance company serves as an MGA for a particular line of business on behalf of other industry organizations. Additionally, international antitrust concerns may “force” certain consortia to include third-party members to participate at the book-of-business level.

Q: Does your solution support a single company scenario as the only cedant?

A: Yes, the SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS solution can be configured for a single company.

Q: Would a single company configuration still have access to the Business Intelligence Server and toolset?

A: Yes, in this case the book-of-business is created “behind the scene” with full access to the tool set, which makes the Business Intelligence available for the single entity and additional companies or business units that might be included at a later date.

Q: What business problems are addressed by the SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS solution?

A: The SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS solution addresses common industry issues such as:

• Losses (hard-to-detect errors around premium received and payable, claims and risk allocations due to untimely and incomplete collection of data and, repetitive manual work and paper-based processes)
• Operating Expenses (excessive labor cost in managing the entire reinsurance contract workflow, redundant software and related IT expenses commonly due to fragmented business processes)
• Reduced Investment Income (negative impact due to delayed claims recovery)
• Lost Business Opportunities (lack of access to intelligence embedded in own data to facilitate management in making the “right” business decisions)

Q: We understand the SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS solution in general but how do you define the real power of TAMS?

A: TAMS provides an unparalleled end-to-end solution for reinsurance administration that manages complex proportional and non-proportional reinsurance contract combinations throughout the entire reinsurance contract workflow, from assumed and ceded to retroceded business. It automates calculations and generates transactions for premium, commissions, and claims based on events and transactions at the original policy level; it also manages the generation of statements of account, claim notifications and loss recovery notices. All transactions coming into the system can be tracked from their point of origination through all participants in each of the affected reinsurance contracts – in real time!

Q: What are the principal contracts you use when configuring the SurSITE^® CMS/TAMS environment?

A: The system uses three types of contracts to configure a client-specific reinsurance contract workflow from assumed and ceded to retroceded business. The contracts are (i) the Assumed Ceding contract that combines the function of a ceding and assumed contract within the system, (ii) book-of-business (Pool) treaties, and (iii) retrocession contracts.

Q: What is an Assumed Ceding Contract?

A: The SurSITE^® system uses a combination contract that takes the role of both the ceded and assumed contracts when configuring the reinsurance contract workflow. We refer to this combination contract as the Assumed Ceding Contract, which enables configuration and process automation of extensive treaty and facultative contract combinations and reinsurance programs.

Q: What is the significance of the Book-of-Business concept?

A: The Book-of-Business concept represents a key element of the solution. It is a primary information repository where a subset of policy and claims data is stored. A Book-of-Business treaty can be created to assume like exposure from many subsidiary companies, or business by geographic location. The aggregation of enterprise-wide reinsurance data at a “corporate level” provides access to valuable real-time information to assist senior management in making crucial business decisions when time is of essence. Traditional reinsurance administration, on the other hand, would require each subsidiary to research, calculate and compile such information before it could be forwarded to the corporate headquarter for yet another aggregation cycle which easily can add 40 to 60 days before useful information are made available. In contrast, SurSITE^® users have real-time access to the critical information when needed.

Q: What are the different Accounting Methods and/or Reinsurance Contract structure supported by CMS/TAMS?

A: CMS and TAMS support a number of different technical accounting methods for both ceded and retroceded business. The different technical accounting methods can be used in various combinations on both the assumed ceding and retrocession sides. In addition to a manual method, which allows the user to control the calculation and make manual entries into the system, the system also supports the following automated technical accounting methods:

Each of these methods supports a variety of premium and co-insurance types, and occurrence bases (e.g. LOD vs. Risk Attaching) for non-proportional contracts. There are certain premium calculations, which are only supported under direct business scenarios, or when necessary policy details are provided (e.g. Percentage of Sum Insured if Exposed for Excess of Loss contracts) since the original sum insured is required for these calculations.

The system calculates the applicable exposure for each contract so that correct premium and recovery transactions are generated on the retrocession side based on actual retained exposure from the assumed ceding side. These technical accounting methods can be used in different combinations subject to certain industry standard business rules. Some of the possible combinations for a single risk and coverage transaction are outlined below to give an idea of how these different methods could be used together:

Q: What alternatives do you provide in protecting specific contract retention limits?

A: The cedant’s contract retention can be protected by applying a Q/S, Proportional Surplus or WXL contract to achieve the desired net retention any one loss.

Q: Does the solution allow a Cat XL to protect either (i) our net retention, or (ii) the entire retention amount?

A: Both.

Q: What Property & Casualty lines of business does SurSITE^® support?

A: A table-driven approach provides an easy method to configure multi-line contracts (e.g., risk classification, coverage, transaction types, etc.) and their associated definitions. Thus, contracts requiring support of a new line of business, coverage, transaction types, can be configured on demand. Any system features initially not used can be activated to meet the client's changing business needs going forward.

Q: Is it possible to specify sub-limits to specific coverage in XL and Risk Excess contracts?

A: Yes.

Q: Our UW year is 1/1 – 12/31 but our reinsurance program runs 7/1 – 6/30. Does SurSITE^® TAMS allow this somewhat tricky scenario from an automation standpoint of view?

A: Yes, TAMS provides mapping capability of ceded and retroceded contracts to multiple Book-of-Business treaties across one-to-many underwriting years.

Q: Does the SurSITE^® system provide support for commutation?

A: SurSITE^® provides extended support for the increasingly important commutation process. SurSITE^® offers the ability to "flag" a direct participating reinsurer and select the commutation effective date, credit the account with an agreed commutation settlement amount. Once completed, the transaction engine will continue to allocate subsequent claim and premium transactions related to the commutated participant but stop generation of Loss Recovery Notices and Claim Notifications. Thus, the entity who assumes the commutated portion can easily manage the additional exposure via treaty analysis, statements of account, etc. to closely follow development of the commutated portion of the treaty and received commutation settlement amount.

Q: That’s great but does your system support commutation for participants “behind” a broker’s reinsurance order?

A: Yes, SurSITE^® allows specifying participants behind a broker or other intermediary which provides full commutation support for a reinsurance participant that’s part of a broker’s order.

Q: Can SurSITE^® be configured to meet our unique business needs with operations on several continents? If so, how can it be managed/controlled from one central location?

A: SurSITE^® is a Web-based application that utilizes a central repository which can be accessed globally based on your specified security requirements. Additionally, SurSITE^® can be localized with support for different languages and currencies. SurSITE^® was designed from the onset to meet the needs of an international insurance and reinsurance organization. Again, the Book-of-Business provides the primary means to manage and control an enterprise-wide portfolio.

Q: Will my staff have less manual work to do if we use your platform?

A: Yes, SurSITE^® helps in automating the previously time-consuming and error prone processes and in generating almost any kind of required report, including documentation, management reports, and data for regulatory reporting. Provides critical information on demand.

Q: Does your solution offer advanced reporting and analysis services?

A: Yes, SurSITE^® provides both basic and advanced reporting capabilities. All reports in the system can be printed and exported as PDF, Excel, Tiff, XML or Web Archive formats. All capabilities are available from the same web interface. Some of the core analytical reports include – Book of Business Review, Accumulation Control, and Loss Exposure by Risk by Region as part of an interactive Map Control feature, Tracking Claim and Premium allocations from Assumed and Ceded to Retrocession layers by each individual participant.

Q: Does SurSITE^® have the capability right now to geographically map my exposure by line of business and class, or by country, state/province, county, postal code or absolute location? Could SurSITE^® automatically calculate the aggregate exposure before and after applied reinsurance in any geographic area related to any major loss (even if the loss were spread over several lines of business and affected contracts that we entered into on several continents)?

A: SurSITE^® has built-in capabilities in providing geographical drill-downs by various constraints and parameters like: Line of business, Risk Class, Geographical boundaries, etc.

Q: Would we be able to run a report like that right in our office or do we have to call you for assistance?

A: Yes, any user with proper security permission can run reports on demand. The system provides a sophisticated report engine to gain access to detailed data for reporting and analysis. The report engine module offers a variety of automated management reports that allow clients to review and manage the information contained in the system. SurSITE^® provides access to all data collected by the system, which allows the generation of key statistical and analytical information. The system provides for both on-line and off-line report generation and in the case of off-line reports user notification and on-line report storage.

Q: Let’s take Katrina as an example. My company may take a financial hit due to losses paid and outstanding reserves. How could the business processes contained in SurSITE^® have alerted us of the pending “disaster”?

A: In a case like Katrina, your organization would be able to run analytical queries in real time to assess the aggregate exposure by line of business by the geographic area along the estimated path of the storm.

Q: Is your application a packaged application or is customization required? How difficult is it to integrate your system into our existing IT environment?

A: SurSITE^® is a packaged product but usually requires integration with existing systems based on client needs. SurSITE^® has an enterprise integration server to interface with existing Policy, Claims and Financial Accounting systems through industry standard secure XML Web Services.

Q: How can your system assist an organization with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, internal, external and regulatory audits?

A: SurSITE^® provides support for end-to-end audits across its entire solution spectrum from assumed and ceded to retroceded business throughout the CMS, TAMS, Business and System Administration modules. We encourage each client to invite its public accountants to participate during the design phase of client specific audit views and reports.

Q: Why did you select a European insurance and reinsurance consortium for the initial design and deployment?

A: By opportunity. However, reinsurance companies throughout Continental Europe and the London Market have historically been the leading providers of reinsurance solutions to the global insurance industry. In an effort to secure compliance with established industry standards, contracts, premium and loss allocation methods and, more importantly successfully deploy the book-of-business concept.

Q: Who provided the test scripts to validate the hundreds of algorithms that constitute the TAMS server?

A: In addition to our own staff, experienced third-party professional from Swiss Re and Aon’s London office provided the majority of the test cases and intensively tested the system over an approximate six month period.

Q: What is unique about your solution compared to competition?

A: The Book-of-Business concept in conjunction with the TAMS server is what really distinguishes the SurSITE^® offering from competition. Many competing systems do not handle today’s complexity and business needs of the insurance and reinsurance industry.

Q: What are the key advantages with your solution?

A: The SurSITE^® solution offers these important advantages to insurers and reinsurers:

• Supports complex proportional and non-proportional facultative and treaty contract scenarios, eliminating costly, difficult-to-detect human errors made when calculating premium and loss allocations
• Reduces time used for complex multi-contract reinsurance recoveries while increasing the accuracy of the underlying calculations
• Improves cash flow, due to faster, more accurate recoveries
• Reduces large administrative costs by extensively automating technical accounting methods to industry standards
• Improves statistical data for trend analysis and enhanced underwriting
• Generates technical accounting summary invoices for easy integration into external financial accounting systems
• Supports almost any kind of reinsurance entity or organization, conforming to almost any workflow requirements
• Supports multiple languages, multiple currencies, multiple offices (or sites), multiple users, multiple roles, and multiple business lines and multiple risk types within business lines
• Capable of generating almost any kind of required report, including insurance documentation, managerial reporting, and regulatory reporting

Q: Will you continue improving the SurSITE^® solution?

A: STI’s objective is to put its internal domain expertise and that of the evolving market and our planned user group to secure the highest value proposition possible for our clients. We are constantly evaluating additional functionality that will enhance the value for its users.

Q: Can you give some examples?

A: We are positioned to quickly respond to the evolving market by deploying new P&C premium and claims allocation methods as they are agreed to by the major industry leaders. Additional and refined contract types and methods are being readied for deployment. Life, Health and Annuity support is an example which will be made available to clients at no additional cost with an annual subscription in force.

Q: How do we make sure we have the most recent version and release to maximize the value of our investment?

A: As a client, you will receive scheduled upgrades and functional enhancements to your purchased solution environment as part of the annual subscription fee.

Q: Your system is based on the Microsoft platform. How secure and reliable is this environment?

A: We take the security of our products and client configurations very seriously; the SurSITE^® system does not base its security assumptions on being inside an already secure network.

The security model for the SurSITE^® framework is based on a number of key elements. Access to the system is normally restricted to 128-bit encrypted sessions using authorized protocols filtered through a hardware-based firewall. Strong authentication and authorization is provided using Microsoft’s Active Directory. Active Directory provides a powerful base for managing, authenticating, and authorizing users and their profiles. The model supports role- based security and application-level authorization via a common profile repository, thus allowing the system to be integrated into existing enterprise domain implementations with only a few application extensions.

Security for a web enabled application on the internet is also largely dependent on following proper programming techniques to avoid certain security vulnerabilities. We have firmly established programming guidelines with respect to security to avoid some of the most common security vulnerabilities such as URL modification, buffer over run attacks, and many others.

Although we have taken many steps to ensure that the applications and configurations are provided maximum security, good system security requires monitoring and vigilance on the part of the client’s system and network administrators. To ensure that systems maintain the greatest level of security and operation, it is critical that servers are hardened and locked down, physical access is restricted, other security devices such as firewalls are in place and configured properly, and that the appropriate software security patches and anti-virus software are up to date.

Q: What purchasing option do you offer for the SurSITE^® system?

A: The SurSITE^® solution including its primary servers can be obtained through:

• affordable annual subscription alternatives
• purchase of perpetual licenses, or through
• an outsourcing agreement.

Q: Well, we are interested enough and would like to take the next step. How do we proceed?

A: We propose an approach to minimize your risk as follows:

• Step 1: The initial interaction with a potential client includes a no fee offer to configure our reinsurance solution to a segment of the prospect’s existing reinsurance program to include real business scenarios with emphasis on experienced difficulties with its current support environment. This has proven to be a powerful demonstration of the benefits associated with the book-of-business concept and encouraged most prospects to learn more about how SurSITE^® can assist the company in solving the many problems related to traditional reinsurance administration.
• Step 2: An initial 4-8 week professional service engagement is used for requirements and information gathering. From this, we generate a formal detailed “As-Is, To-Be, and Benefit” based proposal. In discussion with the client, we then proceed to a “go/no-go” decision for the project as a whole.
• Step 3: This phase entails either a single subsidiary/business unit or a full-scale global implementation for an insurance group. During this phase the specific client installation is customized, delivered, and integrated. A single site implementation can take from three to nine months depending on the scope of the initial deployment. The time-consuming phase of any deployment is integration and data migration work.

Once each deployment has been completed, tested, and accepted, the system enters the annual subscription phase of the software lifecycle with technical support and maintenance included. During this phase, the client will receive system enhancements and additional functionality when released at no additional cost.