Cape Town, 06 Feb 2013
MUA Insurance Acceptances, a leading insurance underwriter specialising in tailored personal lines insurance solutions for high-net-worth individuals, has launched a mobile application developed by DVT in an effort to streamline communications with its clients and brokers. The app is currently available on iOS and Android phones, with BlackBerry accessibility coming soon.
The company has a national portfolio of more than 20 000 clients managed through a network of 700 independent insurance brokers. The MUA App is set to improve communication between existing and future MUA clients, brokers and the company by providing a convenient way for clients and brokers to access MUA via an open and user-friendly channel 24 hours a day. Another important feature of the app is that it provides clients with a tool to activate emergency responses wherever and whenever.
"Our clients, many of whom are busy executives, need to be able to access their details and update their requirements at a time that is convenient for them," says Christelle Fourie, MD, MUA Insurance Acceptances. "MUA decided in early 2012 to create the app and then embarked on a process to find the right supplier who could create a solution that was both affordable and met the needs of our clients."
Fourie says MUA chose DVT because of the experience the company has in app development. The entire process, from initiation to going live, took six months. The unique needs for the new technology were thrashed out through various workshops and planning sessions between DVT and MUA.
One of the most important functions of the new app is that it gives users the ability to locate the nearest police station or hospital in the event of an emergency, or to be put through to the MUA emergency hotline to get immediate assistance.
Users can report motor or home claims directly to MUA using a wizard that will guide them step-by-step on what information they need to capture in order for the claim to be processed successfully.
Clients will also be able to receive a copy of their policy schedules, update their policies to add or delete an item, change their banking details, update their contact details or even cancel their policies through the app. Users of the app will also be able to access MUA's social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as the MUA newsfeed.
"The app is a practical and useful tool to help MUA clients when they have to submit a claim, a time which is often stressful," says Craig Neill, CTO at DVT. "It also allows them to automate several client interaction processes. We were pleased to be chosen as the developer because MUA is one of the first insurance underwriters to have a mobile app. It's great to be associated with a financial services company that is forward-thinking and dynamic."
The application was developed using PhoneGap, an open source framework that allows developers to easily create apps on a variety of different mobile platforms, and the Sencha Touch HTML5 mobile application framework. The project was delivered using an agile approach with short delivery cycles and regular client interaction.
"The project was challenging as it coincides with a larger project that is in progress, which is delivering a new policy administration system to MUA," says Johan Pieters, manager, enterprise mobile solutions at DVT. "Hence the back-end integration of the mobile application had to take both the existing policy admin system as well as the pending new one into consideration. We also had to ensure that interactions between clients and brokers and specific client policy details were protected according to the requirements of the Protection of Personal Information Bill (POPI)."
For more information on the MUA mobile app, go to: http://youtu.be/zYMsEtCG-Ng.
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