Zurich’s DevOps Team Builds Application Prototype in 90 Minutes
Barrington Clarke, DevOps Lead at Zurich Insurance, has an understated way of describing one of his team’s most impressive achievements: “The Motor First Notice of Loss Application (FNOL) is not a particularly remarkable application. There’s lots of insurance companies that have got those, but for us, it was the manner in which it was developed and delivered.”
The Motor FNOL application is, indeed, a simple proposition. It’s a mobile application that enables drivers for corporate fleets to simply and quickly report motor vehicle accidents to their employer and Zurich.
Simple in its use, what’s impressive is the way the application came to be, with Clarke’s DevOps team taking an idea from prototype in just 90 minutes, to live app in a matter of weeks.
A Mobile Solution
The origin of the application was a conversation between a Customer Relationship Manager at Zurich and an associate of a department store with a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles.
The customer had requested a mobile application for reporting motor vehicle accidents, as drivers of their corporate vehicles would often significantly delay accident reporting.
Having developed a reputation for delivering impactful applications across underwriting, claims, and customer portals, Clarke’s DevOps team was approached by one of Zurich’s customer-facing teams, requesting that they develop a prototype application to play back to the customer.
Dan Lawford, Zurich Business Engineer, explains: “[The customer’s] employees didn’t generally like doing it, they always delayed, they might have an accident one month, and they didn’t put in a claim for two months.”
Rapid Development in Action
The Motor FNOL application presents the user with a few simple prompts:
- Make a claim
- Submit a request for roadside assistance
- Call Zurich Insurance directly
When making a claim, personal information is pre-populated by the user’s profile, then the user is instructed to include details about the incident, such as the location of the accident. The FNOL app assists the user’s entry of information with the inclusion of geolocation capabilities, and the provision of forms for witnesses and accident circumstances.
Lastly, the team at Zurich included native device functionality, utilizing the device’s camera to collect photography of the accident scene before claim submission.
Using Mendix Studio, a no-code, web-based IDE, Lawford put together a prototype application in just 90 minutes.
The Final Result
With the customer’s interest and approval in-hand, the DevOps team got to work building a production-ready app.
With only an expert developer, a business engineer, and a UI/UX accelerator, the application was transformed from a 90-minute prototype into a fully functional mobile application for 2,000 drivers in just four weeks.
More than the fact that their work helped Zurich’s account team close business, and the impressive velocity of the project, Clarke believes this demonstrates how impactful the DevOps Team’s way of working can be within Zurich.