Rapid Product to Market
LUNOS offers a fast turnaround time for getting a product from design to market - new products and product changes. This is due to a design based on externalization of all of the aspects of insurance product. The insurance product is developed externally, supported by standard tooling and deployed dynamically in the application. No changes to core system code are necessary.
A Silvermoon customer using a LUNOS-powered solution was able to respond to a competitor's product, with a new one of their own, within 2 weeks of the competitor's announcement.
Lower Cost of Ownership
LUNOS powered solutions have a small code footprint and consequently run with significantly lower operating costs. The LUNOS design is a component model design which minimizes or eliminates functional duplication and thus delivers more function with less software, resulting in the lowest possible Total Cost of Ownership. Because duplication of code and systems is avoided, maintenance costs are reduced from the outset and kept low for the life of the system.
A Silvermoon customer, with an end-to-end replacement of their legacy system, was able to more than halve their IT to company administration ratio.
Product-Driven System
LUNOS-powered solutions are driven by product specifications. Each product, and its Lifecycle, drives the behavior of the core system in respect of that product's requirements, making the whole system dynamic and quickly responsive to business requirements.
Products specifications are modeled, processed into executable form and then plugged into the system. The system is immediately capable of processing those products as if built for them.
Any product structure can be modeled. Thus, any type of product imaginable can be invented and run on the same platform. This means that any product for any line of business can be run on the same platform - Life, P&C (Short Term), Health, Medical and so on.
Product is an alternate term for Agreement Specification so Sales Remuneration Packages, Third Party (Provider) Agreements and Employee Agreements all fall within the domain of the functionality.
Excellent Financial Control
Silvermoon end-to-end solutions run from quote through issue, commission management, policy changes, claims, billing and maturity with previously unprecedented levels of business control and regulatory compliance.
Information is under control and reports are generated from the source data. There is total traceability of each transaction with lineage.
A company that conducted an end-to-end replacement of their legacy systems with a Silvermoon LUNOS-powered solution now experiences totally compliant audits each year - no adverse findings whatsoever.
Solution Flexibility (Open Extensibility)
Silvermoon's customers are not locked into a platform or into Silvermoon as a vendor. Our customers may customize and extend their applications themselves. We facilitate this by providing a framework for adding new rules, new calculations and modifying existing rules, calculations or product definitions.
Risk Reduction
LUNOS software is based on best practices, it is built entirely on IBM's IAA architecture and the Product Exchange format is based on the upcoming Product Schema standard from ACORD. The architecture has been extensively tested by leading insurers across the globe (IAA User Group), a leading technology company (IBM) and the leading standards body for Insurance (ACORD). This reduces requirements and solution design risk for customers.
Also LUNOS components provide risk reduction in the core processes of the insurance company through the automatic enforcement of product rules throughout the contract lifecycle.
LUNOS allows transactions to be strictly control based. The main principle is delegation of authority and a clear separation of duties between requestor from authorizer/s on the supported transactions. This principle is used in all elements of the business where risk is taken by the insurance company (such as underwriting policies) or where money can be moved, like in policy management transactions or where claims are concerned. This principle together with the sound principles of double entry accounting puts all the Financial Controls in place a modern insurance company needs to securely manage its business.
Services Oriented Architecture and more
The functions provided are invoked as "SOA Services" by an independent Workflow layer - externalized business processes running on a business process engine or by the user interface or an external application. Thus, the same function can be used to support multiple distribution and service channels and multiple external partners. This is the essence of SOA.
However the Platform offers more because the function will execute in the appropriate business and product context, thus ensuring any differences in rule sets due to product or process context are taken into account. Further, with the de facto standard, IAA, being adopted as the official industry standard by ACORD, we can see additional vendors adopting the standard data model and, in time, the standard service interfaces. This will result in more choices for the insurer in the future, making it possible to swap-out and swap-in components - true vendor independence.
Architectural Business Benefits
IAA is unique in that it has been built and maintained by the Insurance Industry across the globe over the last 18 years. As a body of knowledge, guide and architecture it is unrivalled.
Although computing and information technology have changed dramatically over the years, the fundamental things insurance companies do have not. Technology changes all the time, but fundamental insurance requirements don't.
Yet, as the original management and workers in these companies have left over time, the companies appear to have "forgotten" their requirements. Each new IT project seems to start off with an elaborate requirements gathering process.
A big advantage of using IAA is that all of these original requirements have been remembered and recorded in its models
With the fundamental insurance capabilities in place as laid out by IAA, an insurance company using it is able to dedicate far more of its resources to what makes them special.
One way to look at IAA is that it is a complete architecture. It represents an architecture of a sophisticated building you can move into and start conducting business or living in. You could try to build it yourself, have it built for you or even build it out over time (like a renovation project).
Once it is built however you need to move in with your special stuff and make it home. With IAA-based solutions such as LUNOS, this represents your specific product, rules, calculations and specialized processing. Of course you may also wish to have your own signage, facades etc, but all the core rooms and systems will be in place and functional. The essence of what the building does is enduring, how it is used and exposed can change as needs dictate.
