Q1 2024 progress update

Technology build

Messaging 

EDIs (Electronic Data Interchange) are standardised heritage electronic communication methods, used to exchange information and data in a structured format, streamlining transactions and reducing human intervention.

On 1 March, the full suite of technical specifications for EDI standardised messages was completed. Velonetic also published 21 supported customised EDIs on 6 March (also known as bespoke EDIs) and the ACORD4ALL mapping for supported customised EDI messages became available on the 15 March. You can find out more information here.

Please contact your Blueprint Two engagement partner if you have any queries. We’ll continue to iterate the technical specifications as we go through customer testing in Q2 2024 and will ensure they are made available on the Blueprint Two website. 

Market engagement and adoption

26 February market event and follow-up Q&A sessions

On Monday 26 February, Lloyd's and Velonetic co-hosted our first Blueprint Two Working Session of 2024 with over 550 market participants in attendance. 

Following a plenary session opened by Lloyd's COO Bob James and Chris Halbard, CEO of Velonetic, three spotlight sessions on testing, training, onboarding and cutover activities gave attendees ample opportunity to ask questions. The slides and recordings are available, together with a pre-briefing pack (view here). 

Following our February event, we hosted two follow-up Q&A sessions at the Lloyd’s building on 14 March. Across the two sessions, our panel of experts covered a range of adoption-related technical questions including timeline readiness, cutover, testing, training and onboarding, DPSA and more. The recordings of these sessions can be found here.

Additional market engagement activities

As we progress towards cutover, there’s a greater need to update market participants on our activities, and provide ample opportunities to respond to your questions. Our market events and follow-up Q&A sessions are proving extremely popular and are regularly oversubscribed, so we’re holding a series of virtual drop-in sessions over the next few months to provide additional support.

These sessions provide an opportunity to receive real-time updates and ask questions to our experts. Our first virtual sessions on 25 March for brokers and carriers allowed more detailed questions for each of these specific communities. The recordings of these sessions can be found here. The focus of future sessions will include messaging, testing, training, onboarding and cutover. Please look out for updates on our events page and in our Blueprint Two monthly newsletter.

Customer testing and Vanguard

As shared at our 26 February market event, we’re resetting our Vanguard programme to support broader customer testing activities. 

The vendor testing plan was distributed to vendor Vanguard participants on 14 March. It outlined the key milestones, testing objectives and requirements. On 25 March, we published a comprehensive overview of the testing framework, covering Vanguard and customer testing. This also includes a summary of the testing results to date, and how the defect management process will work. We’re aiming to update this every two to four weeks, and it will be republished on the testing section of the Blueprint Two website. If have any immediate queries, please contact your engagement partner or Kerry Rainer. Details of drop-in sessions will follow soon.

There are three test approaches, ensuring market participants are ready to use the new digital processing services in their organisations:

• Vanguard: We’re resetting the programme and will work with this group to provide early connectivity, functionality, and end-to-end business scenario testing with broker and carrier customers

• Co-ordinated: Enables market participants to test Velonetic and LIMOSS defined end-to-end processes through scenarios that provide agreed scope coverage

• Enhanced: Providing testing of scenarios which are tailored to customer requirements and not covered through the co-ordinated testing approach.

Training

Velonetic’s new interactive learning platform was launched on 1 March 2024 to support training on the new digital services. The first module on user administration also went live, with drop-in sessions held from 4 March.

Training is being delivered using the following three approaches:

• User manuals (available from 2 April): Documents designed to inform end users how the systems support Velonetic services

• Self-paced e-learning modules: Designed to allow learners to progress through the material at their own pace via the learning platform

• Instructor-led training: Face-to-face or virtual sessions where course content and learning material are taught to a group of people. You can find our more by emailing Velonetic education.

Market firms should ensure each eligible user completes their registration to the learning platform, and user administrators should complete the first training module on user administration.

Keep up to date on the latest training information

Cutover

As discussed at our event on 26 February, cutover is the migration from heritage systems (known as ‘FERN’) to the new digital processing services. There are four stages of cutover, with a series of ‘go or no-go’ decision points at the start of each stage:

1. Submissions block

2. Technical cutover

3. Digital processing services are live

4. Full business processing services. 

To resolve any potential critical issues, mitigation plans are in place and will be triggered depending on the cutover stage:

• Postpone: Defer cutover period to a later date, while the issue is begin addressed

• Rollback: A series of steps to reverse from the new system to the heritage system; the complexity increases as transaction volumes increase

• Fix forward: Process to fix issues in an isolated fashion while the system is live

Market survey

Our monthly surveys help us understand how the market is progressing with adoption readiness activities. The questions focus on actions market participants need to complete, as set out in the phase one adoption guide. Please contact your firm's Blueprint Two champion if you would like to see how you are tracking against overall market progress.

The key resources to support adoption of the new digital services can be found here, and for specific questions or support required, contact your engagement partner.

Claims

Faster Claims Payment

Faster Claims Payment (FCP) continues to expand its scope for Lloyd’s delegated authority business. The following binders came into scope earlier this year for FCP: continuous contracts, line slips and service companies. 

All binders in scope are on the LIMOSS website

Vitesse is launching a market-wide FCP service to support managing agents with back-end reconciliation. The service and its format, recommended by the FCP market user group, is helping to match FCP funding account credits from the STFO (Settlement and Trust Fund Office) process against syndicate claims messages from the prior month. This is an interim solution and is the first step to fully automating back-end reconciliations. 

More information on the matching service is on the LIMOSS website