Insurtech, an amalgamation of the words “insurance” and “technology”, is an innovation in the insurance sector. Just like the FinTech industry underwent changes, that disrupted the old ways of dealings and made way for new and even more efficient ways, insurance sector too has undergone such an evolution. Be it because of an external factor like the sharing economy or using technology to improve the operations, insurance is heading towards a better evolution.
Founded by Mr. Aldo Capurro, C Consulting S.p.A is the market leader in Italy in providing high quality software solutions for managing reinsurance processes (Life and Non-Life Lines of Business) with XLayers suite. C Consulting S.p.A. was founded in Italy in 2000.
C Consulting International, which is its subsidiary, was founded in 2014 and was borne out of the mission to promote XLayers as the end-to-end insurance solution on international markets.
XLayers first made its entry into the business in the year 2000 and insurance companies, as well as reinsurers and brokers, began utilizing it to manage and certify reinsurance processes more quickly and effectively. Over the last 20 years, C Consulting has managed to capture more than 70 percent of the domestic market in Italy and is rapidly making its presence felt all across Europe as well.
CCI’s mission is to promote the diffusion of the XLayers solution on international markets and to assist Clients in the implementation of this solution so they can derive the expected benefits.
XLayers is the market leader in Italy for the management, control and certification of reinsurance. It is the only system on the market still owned by the initial developer (C Consulting S.p.A.) that has always been totally dedicated to the reinsurance “niche”. Even the staff of specialists is made up of those who had conceived and developed the first version of the system. They are more than fifty and include reinsurance experts from the reinsurance and IT departments of large and even international insurance companies where they spent many years.
XLayers has been the focus of the activity of C Consulting S.p.A. for the past 20years and is now being used successfully by more than 60Customers (the majority of which operate on the Italian market) that actively participate in the “User Group”: the yearly meeting where all XLayers Customer gather to discuss about the market and the Product and where they are presented with the latest implementations on XLayers and take part to the next year Product evolution roadmap.
CCI operates abroad through a network of international partners (business and technology experts, professionals and former reinsurance managers as well) who organize presentations and demos directly to heads and employees of the relevant departments (Reinsurance, Financial Management, Risk Management, Compliance, Operations as well as Top Management) of the target Companies.
Although, operating on such a large scale was not an easy task. To believe in the idea sounds easy, but to make others believe it is tough, because usually one believes only after he/she gets the desired results. Same was the case for C Consulting: the main challenge was to convince Clients who were used to managing the whole reinsurance process manually that an IT system worked and could really be used to improve their services.
But the two main points that helped trigger the growth of the company were
- In 2005 when the Italian Regulation Authority set the rules to managing reinsurance
- In 2009 when Solvency II came into force
The following growth graphs show how these points made it easy for the company to grow substantially.
The Products and Services of C Consulting
We have been entirely dedicated to reinsurance for 20 years: we have invested 150 man-years of commitment and development on our flagship product, XLayers.
Currently, C Consulting leverages its flagship product, XLayers, a digital platform dedicated to reinsurance management. XLayers is an extensive suite of solutions that enables Clients to manage all aspects of the reinsurance life cycle: from the feeding of premiums and claims to the right sources and Parties all the way to the production of records for general ledgers, XLayers is an end-to-end reinsurance management solution for both the life and non-life insurance businesses.
XLayers manages both outward and inward reinsurance and enables the production of all the reinsurance related QRT’s in virtually zero time.
The main benefit that Clients gain from XLayers is full control, total accuracy, and savings in both cost and time because it fully automates all the processes and eliminates the manual errors that can occur when managing reinsurance.
Their XLayers suite of services include-
- XLayers: certified management of outward reinsurance
- XInward: certified management of inward reinsurance
- XEiopa: compliance to EIOPA (QRT) and IVASS (574/D) regulations
- XLife: management of reinsurance agreements on risk premium basis, flat or variable rate
- XProfile: managing portfolio profiles before and after reinsurance
- XPortal: portal for reinsurance analysis
Besides the XLayers platform, C Consulting also offers Clients advisory services not just on the management of reinsurance but on all their internal reinsurance problems as well.
The C Consulting offer is very different from the other reinsurance services/products on the market because of the total dedication to reinsurance management and control. The company’s top-class added value services are designed for solution-based project by employing highly qualified functional and technical resources.
Their services are highly effective on project implementation methodology based on PMI standards. And give total guarantee from the project launch (processes definition, functional design, data analysis, product implementation and training) right up to the system support.
Implementation methodology:
- Defining the work group
- Breaking down the project into a sequence of steps based on the reinsurance processes
- Setting the goals of the project and of each relating step
- Establishing the work plan
- Applying analysis and checklist templates
- Defining test cases and methods of data reconciliation
- Defining the Service Level Agreement
- Defining the model of integration into the current system’s context
- Defining the model of user training
MoreoverC Consulting also provides support in:
- Analyzing and in redefining reinsurance processes
- Defining relating administrative processes
- Assessing relating levels of compliance
- Conducting risk assessment
- Measuring the effectiveness of their risk mitigation tools
- Studying and/or the rewriting of Reinsurance agreements
C Consulting is the only organization totally dedicated to reinsurance for the past 20 years. Furthermore, they put their Clients first. Once per year, all their Clients gather at the XLayers User Group, where all the main new features of the product are shown in detail and where all the Clients take part in defining the product development roadmap for the next year with the C Consulting team. Therefore, all the implementations they do on XLayers are driven by the real needs from real Clients.
The company is currently developing a module of XLayers that will enable their Clients to communicate seamlessly with the Ruschlikon/ACORD standards. They have also successfully completed a POC with real data that proved XLayers capable to automatically issuing some CM and TA ACORD messages within the Ruschlikon France Initiative.
With this new service on the table, the company has successfully completed, with one of their Clients, a project for issuing the 2019 balance sheet in full compliance with IFRS17 guidelines and have already released a module that fully complies with the continental and international regulations and their mandatory requirements such as the Solvency II Directive of the EU Law that controls insurance company operations.
Aldo Capurro- CEO of C Consulting | Leading the Way-
The main responsibility of an entrepreneur is to look a little further than the others and to guarantee top-level services to all Clients in the medium-long term.
With six years’ experience as a programmer and an analyst in large Italian industrial groups, in 1985 Aldo entered the insurance world as the IT Manager of a marine branch of the Generali Group – the UnioneMediterranea di Sicurità. There he designed a complete overhaul of the IT system based on the IBM platform. In 1998 he left to become project leader in major consultancy firms working alongside insurers such as Lloyd Italico, PadanaAssicurazioni and Cattolica Assicurazioni. Aldo played a key role in the installation of their reinsurance management IT systems.
By 2000 Aldo and a small group of investors founded C Consulting to develop its flagship product ‘XLayers’, a comprehensive system for reinsurance management and certification. Aldo has been the CEO of C Consulting since the outset and has guided and grown the company, developing an idea that has become highly successful by acquiring more thansixty customers who enjoy a strong partnership with C Consulting.
In 2014, Aldo and his partners decided to launch C Consulting International, bringing together a team of industry experts with years of hands-on experience in the field in order to market the product abroad to insurers involved in reinsurance.
Starting from scratch, he has been able to create a group of specialists and a software solution for the management of outward reinsurance, which is now used by more than 70% of the Italian potential market. He was also able to successfully bring the system abroad where the company is now raising great interest in their product.
I believe we are taking a very important step forward in the right direction. (There are now eight companies in five countries that use our solution.)
The Team-
A software company is very particular kind of company. The link the team shares is more about mutual esteem than an employer-employee relationship.
Flexibility and trust are our major asset.
Each of these things plays an important role in the growth of the organization and team building. The result is a very low employee turnover rate which makes the C Consulting team unique.
The team is made up of more than 50 dedicated individuals, including former reinsurance managers and experts in both outward and inward reinsurance and software engineers who have an in-depth knowledge of reinsurance.
All the know-how and skills are within the company (system architects, analysts and developers) which means that they can customize their product on each and every specific need the Clients might have.
C Consulting has been chosen by more than 60 Clients, in Italy and Europe.
We are totally client-centered: the system growth is completely focused on the needs of our Clients, who actively participate in the User Group.
