2023 Innovation Awards: API Connector Solution

Zurich North America
API Connector Solution

Risk managers at large multinational businesses that buy global insurance programs can spend hours finding and sorting through risk and insurance data to send to their brokers and insurers.

Seeking program information from insurers that then has to be uploaded into organizations’ risk management information systems also takes time.

The need for a more efficient way for data to be shared between Fortune 500 policyholders and the global insurance market led Zurich North America to develop an application programming interface that would digitally connect the two.

Global insurance programs can be complex and require risk managers to keep track of large volumes of data, said Andy Zoller, Dallas-based head of international programs for U.S. commercial insurance at Zurich North America.

“Say there’s a thousand-schedule location and currently they’re having to upload that data into their system. They have to upload a spreadsheet, mail it to us. We then have to upload it on our end,” Mr. Zoller said.

Or, if a risk improvement action is made locally, then the customer has to update its system, he said.

API Connector Solution enables risk management and insurance data to be exchanged in real-time, he said.

The interface includes insurance program, policy and exposure information, data on claims and loss scenarios, risk improvement actions and details on captive insurance, he said.

“The main point is to give the customers their data as quickly as possible in the format that they want. It wasn’t like the data wasn’t available before, but it was just coming in different formats and took a lot longer,” Mr. Zoller said.

After embarking on a test phase with several Europe-based policyholders a few years ago, Zurich launched the interface globally last year.

Interest in the API Connector Solution is growing. More than 10 companies have onboarded and another 20 are in the pipeline, Mr. Zoller said. Any policyholder that has a risk management information system can be connected, he said.

It’s “a one-by-one discussion because with any remnant system it’s been tailored to a customer’s needs, so we have to take that into consideration as we’re connecting the two systems,” Mr. Zoller said.

Zurich is also in talks with several global brokers about using the technology, he said.

“The international insurance space at this moment is going through a digital transformation. We were looking at ways to be a little bit different and provide that data in a format that our customers really use,” Mr. Zoller said.