Minutes of IUG Council Meeting – 23 February 2006
Minutes of IUG Council Meeting
Held at Leadenhall Street
23February2006
List of attendeesGreat Lakes Reinsurance / Graeme Walker(GW)(Acting Chair)
HIH/Paragon / John Mairs(JM)
St Paul / Andy Holman(AH)
SVB Syndicates Limited / Nigel Sheppard(NS)
Global Insurance Solutions / Daryl Yeats(DY)
Alan Chisham (AC)
Jon Downes(JD)
Sharon White(SW) Minutes
Apologies
Everest Reinsurance Co Ltd / Graham Titheridge(GT)
General
1.Council 2006
DY started the meeting by welcoming the new Council members. The new Council for 2006 is comprised of the following:
John Mairs
Graham Titheridge
Nigel Sheppard
Andy Holman
Graeme Walker
DY said that the Council members may like to take this opportunity to decide on a Chair for 2006? After some discussion it was agreed that the Council members would continue to chair the meetings on a rotating basis, i.e. a member would chair a Council meeting and the following subsequent IUG meeting, and the chair would then pass to the next Council member in turn.
Some further discussion took place as to who would like to chair today’s meeting and the following IUG meeting, and after much discussion it would was agreed that Graeme Walker would undertake the role in this instance.
2.Previous Minutes
DY 051116.001 – New Bank Account
Following the departure of Michael Bell as Treasurer, no Council members had felt that they were able to fulfil the role of Treasurer and it had been decided that this role would now be undertaken by Xchanging. This had meant that the original Barclays accounts had to be closed and a new bank account opened by Xchanging which would deal solely with IRISUser Group funds. DY had undertaken to confirm the following points for the Council:
*The official name of the bank account:
Xchanging Global Insurance Solutions T/A IRIS User Group
*The exact method of transfer of money from the bank account to the XGIS revenue account.
Before monies are released from the account, confirmation is required by two Council members that they are in agreement. Any cheques would require signature from two members of Xchanging accounts department after confirmation from the Council.
*That transparency would be in place to show that the funds are being held in trust on behalf of the IUG and that the funds are not XGIS monies.
There is complete transparency. XGIS cannot “use” this account as monies must be approved before transferring funds.
*How the money held for the separate budgets (core, LPC, Lloyd’s) will be differentiated.
Detailed records will be kept by XGIS and passed to Council members on a regular basis.
*The availability of copy bank statements
Bank statements are issued monthly to XGIS and copies will be sent to Council members.
GW asked if DY could seek clarification on the following point:
*Is the bank account a designated trust account? i.e. if Xchanging were to go into liquidation what would happen to the funds held in the account?
ACTION 060223.001 DY
DY 051116.002 – IRIS Upgrades
DY confirmed that she had contacted the IUG members to encourage them to move up to V8. NS said that the SVB upgrade had been delayed by a couple of days, but that they were planning to be live by mid year. QBE are planning a visit to SVB in the near future, so that they may discuss SVB’s experiences with upgrading. St Paul are live on V8.
DY 051116.003 – Council Christmas Lunch
The Council Christmas lunch took place on 16 December 2006 at Gladwins, Minster Court.
There were no further actions outstanding and the previous minutes were agreed as complete.
3.Treasurer’s Report
SW confirmed that the missing bank statement had now been received from Barclays which had enabled the bank position to be reconciled. SW said several members had failed to make a January payment. It was believed that this was due to the Barclays account being closed and members forgetting to update their standing order payments to the new account details. The detailed position is as follows:
XL Singapore
XL Singapore are missing payments September to January 2006 and have been contacted in this regard. XL have advised that this was due to an oversight and that they have now issued payment on 17 February 2006. They also advise that a standing order had been put in place for XL Singapore and XL Bermuda to avoid this problem occurring in the future.
HIH
HIH are missing payments from December 2005 to January 2006 and have also been contacted. JM has confirmed that KPMG handle payments on their behalf and that he is chasing this up with them.
River Thames
River Thames are outstanding their September and October payments. They have been issued with a reminder.
Great Lakes
Great Lakes are outstanding their January payment. Great Lakes have advised that they have now put their standing order in place to start in March and that they are sending a oneoff payment for January and February 2006.
QBE
QBE are also outstanding their January payment. QBE have advised that they have put a standing order in place to start in March and also sending a one-off payment for January/February 2006.
Co-op
Co-op are missing their January payment. Co-op have advised that they did request for the banking details to be changed, but it seems that the payment has been sent to the old account. Co-op are undertaking to get this rectified as soon as possible.
Other Outstanding Payments
The following companies are also outstanding their January 2006 payments and have been sent reminders:
Abacus; Goshawk;Liberty Syndicates; XL London; Momentum.
4.Development
AC then discussed the following items which are currently under development:
Accounting and SettlementOn Hold
Policy Snap Shot PrintBeing coded
Printable System AdministrationBeing coded
Screen Design UtilityRequirement accepted. Waiting for specification to be started.
Viewable Lloyd’s InformationCoding due to start mid/end March
Full Policy History EnquiryA few changes have been requested and will be re-issued.
Combined Business AnalysisCoding has been started
Multi Company Syndicate SecurityCoding has been started
Bureau Message LoadingDraft specification ready for review
Progression Triangle EnquirySome changes have been requested and will be reissued.
EPI Analysis ReportSome changes have been requested and will be reissued.
Claim Analysis ReportSome changes have been requested and will be reissued.
Claim Review DiaryAccepted – waiting for specification to be started.
Lloyd’s Month End ProcessingSome changes have been requested and will be reissued.
Downloading Currency ExchangeAccepted – waiting for specification to be started.
Rates from Lirma
AC confirmed that there has been no change to the items planned to be included in V9.15.
5.Support
JD advised the Council that SNs are currently down to 60 outstanding (a drop from 92). JDexplained that a number of these are due to clients carrying out UAT testing.
GW said that GLR are also planning on carrying out testing in the not too distant future.
6.Any Other Business
Status Reports
GW asked if he could clarify some points on the status report i.e. there seemed to be some difference between the original estimate for work and the projected cost. GW asked if this could be explained.
JM said that when an item is put forward for development, it is really just an idea at that stage, and it is difficult to envisage what the final result will be, so the original estimate is just a very rough estimate. NS said that this had been raised in the past and for this reason a number of checks had been put in place.
AC explained that under the new system there are several stages which an item must past through before being finalised. These is a business requirements document, specification, development. Before any work is started the Council is provided with a fixed price for the work and the Council must give approval for the work to be commenced.
Management Process
AH asked if XGIS could provide him with a document outlining change management processes? AC said there was internal documentation covering this and asked what level document AH required? AH said that he wanted to understand at what stage a developer could lock out coding changes and pass the item on. AH said that he didn’t require anything more than a flow chart.
AC said that a flow chart could be provided which would show this process, however, he would need to seek approval from his manager before issuing this. AC said that his manager, Christine Moore, is currently on holiday but he would discuss this with her on her return.
AH said that it would also be useful if he could be provided with a definition of the roles in the process.
ACTION 060223.002 AC
IRIS Enhancement Changes
AH asked that when changes are made to IRIS at a customer’s request his understanding was that these items should be parameters and not hard coded items. AH said that he believed that this was a matter of principle and would retain the integrity of the system.
JM said that sometimes when items are requested it may take an extra few days work to make them parameter items, and the company may not be able to justify the extra costs involved and therefore would not go ahead with the work. AH said that he was aware of the extra costs involved and that St Paul had paid extra for work themselves.
AC said that when carrying out work of this type XGIS always try their utmost to make the item have minimum or zero impact on other clients. However, in the case that AH was referring to, XGIS had been unaware that St Paul had been using this particular functionality and this item had therefore slipped through.
GW asked if the item had been part of a PTF would it have been listed in the PTF document? DY said that the PTF document is written at a very high level and it was not anticipated that the document had been at a level where the impact of this change would have been noticed by SPSS.
Other News
DY advised the Council that she now has a new role within XGIS. DY said that she would still be looking after the IUG, however, the account managers would now be reporting to RobAtkins and a handover was in place. DY said that she was now responsible for implementation and delivery across all the product areas.
There were no further items and the meeting closed.
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