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Views of phase II: City underwriter view

' ... I have to admit over the past year I was a highly paid typist ... which is not our job at all. Because the underwriter had to get the information in there because he knows his case well, the servicing staff helped, but ... the onus is on the underwriter.

... At one stage I had twenty [cases], now I've just got nine large ones that is. ... The problem in our job is that we do not have precise information and hence an awful lot of ... the problems are because of that. It means that we go into a record, a policy and we have to input the precise cover on a particular country and we don't have it and it means that we have to come out of that, contact obviously the broker, get information, there is a delay and then we have to go into it again, remember where we were, input that, the system crashes or stops and then we have to do it again or then you go onto the next record and you come up against a different problem. It just takes a long, long time. You can actually be at a PC all day and not achieve a lot, very easily. ...

That is on a new programme, on renewals I can honestly say it is a doddle, it really is easy, it works, it's good, because since I've had my cases on now for over a year and I am renewing them ... If the information is in there and usually correctish, it renews it well and all you have to do is go into each record and just have a quick look to see if it looks right. Every time, actually you go in to it, you can actually improve errors because there will always be errors in there it's just you go in and see a few of them ...

It meant that obviously an underwriter took over a case, it took you a good couple of months to basically get to know his case, get to the bottom of it and appreciate precisely what it is, whereas now even if the underwriter doesn't know anything about the case, he or she can hopefully look at the PC and at least have an overall view of the cover and the countries involved and whatever. ... To be honest, I think personally if we have all the information in there it is of use, it is worth it, definitely. ... obviously it means that only one underwriter or office can have the file at any one time whereas now any one can look.'

X058 page 002.11d (tape 03.1.01d) Noah Notes/Tape 24/08/94

Social influence: Organisation: Systems
Technical influence: System characteristics: Usability


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