Scoping your Requirements

So you’ve made the decision to buy a new Policy Administration System. Your existing system is too slow/buggy, changes are difficult or expensive, maybe you want to set up a new product line or brokerage, or maybe Covid-19 has pushed forward your digital roadmap.

Where to begin? Well, to start with you Google ‘insurance software’ or look at the ads in the Insurance Times. There are lots of companies out there, but finding out which is right for you is going to be hard. You contact a few but how to tell if they’re going to do everything you need? There are big companies and small companies. How do you compare apples with apples?

Bit of advice: you need to come armed with a set of requirements. You won’t get very far asking what systems do because they do an awful lot, and lots may not be relevant to you. Ideally, you need a Business Requirements document, or what we call a Scope.

The bigger and better this Scope is, the more likely you are to choose the right company and get the right system.

Shocking admission: Ignite Broker might not be the right system for you! And that’s fine with us. The last thing we want to be doing at Ignite is providing systems to clients who could get better ones elsewhere. There are some great tech products out there and if there is a better fit for your business then go for that.

Ignite is particularly good at certain things – e-commerce, digitisation, integrations, accounting, real-time pricing, the list goes on – but we’re not so good at others – open market products, paper-based operations, London markets, the list goes on.

The scope is all about defining what is important to your company and therefore which system provides best for those requirements. If you’ve got the expertise and time to write a detailed scope document (which can run to hundreds of pages) then go for it! If you haven’t then Ignite can help. The first stage of any project – before contracts are signed. Yes, we charge for it, but it will pay for itself many times over in the long run.

The scope document is systems agnostic, and you’re welcome to show it to other software companies. This way everyone knows what you need from your system and you can truly compare the systems in front of you.

So if you’re looking for a new system, contact us for a demo and talk to us about how a scope document can help you make the right systems choice.

One word of warning: if any company ever says they can build what you’re looking for, don’t buy it. The functionality you need is out there somewhere and comes out-the-box. In a good scope, bespoke work should be at an absolute minimum.