Software houses post year-on-year increases amid rush to meet MID deadlines
Software houses are picking up business from brokers and insurers as a direct result of Motor Insurance Database (MID) targets.
More transactions are being traded via EDI to meet the October deadline.
SSP has seen the total number of policies written via EDI increase by 25% in the past 12 months, while Misys has experienced an increase of 12% to over 1.8 million policies. Sirius and Acturis also claim to have seen year-on-year increases in the use of EDI.
Software houses are generally paid for every EDI transaction processed.
Insurers that do not ensure 95% of all driver data is delivered to the MID within 14 days face fines of up to £250,000 from October.
And brokers that are seen to be holding up the process have been threatened with agency cancellations from the likes of Norwich Union and Groupama.
Mark Ryder, commercial director of Misys General Insurance, said: "By trading via EDI, brokers are able to send information overnight to insurers without any manual intervention. We are therefore suggesting that brokers take full advantage of EDI products."
Non-standard motor policies, including classic cars, commercial vehicles and fleet, are also increasingly being transacted using the electronic format because traditional, manual systems make hitting MID targets difficult.
David Rasche, chief executive of SSP, said: "The use of EDI for commercial vehicle, fleet and schemes transactions is going up all the time and that presents a commercial opportunity for us."
He added: "As MID targets become more stringent, I would expect that figure to keep rising."
An Acturis spokesman confirmed that the software house had undertaken discussions with brokers and insurers about facilitating MID compliance, particularly for commercial vehicle transactions.
Ian Gibbard, business development manager of Sectornet, said: "Although we don't use EDI, we have been working closely with the large brokers like Aon over the last six months to help them forward MID information quickly using other electronic tools.
"This has certainly presented a business opportunity for us."
