[15 October 2008] Researchers from the Computer Networks and Web Technologies Laboratory (CoNWeT Lab), part of the CETTICO research group, based at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s School of Computing, have joined a consortium to develop the “PRIMA” (Intermediation and Mobility Resources Platform for the Insurance Sector) project. The PRIMA initiative is to develop a technology platform to improve management processes.
The consortium members include European leaders from the insurance sector (Allianz Seguros and Groupama), the insurance mediation sector (E2000) and in the development of business platforms for the telecommunications sector (Telefónica I+D). These companies are joined by two eminent research institutions, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Asturias-based Fundación CTIC. This is an unprecedented initiative forming part of the Avanza Plan backed by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade.
The project is scheduled to last two years during which technology to drive electronic services and speed up communication between insurance sector agents will be defined and developed. This technology will depend on innovative mediation and data exchange processes.
The goal is to define and deploy new services for end users and sector professionals, such as accessing information on insurance products from mobile devices, comparing offers, monitoring claim processing or controlling the quality of each company’s provision.
Semantic representation
The UPM is a project partner contributing its knowledge and research experience in fields like Service-Oriented Architectures and the Semantic Web, as well as mature technologies like MyMobileWeb, which are vital for project success.
The key scientific and technological objective targeted by the UPM is to enrich mediation software platforms with a conceptual model of the insurance business domain, enabling the declarative semantic representation of service provider operations and data.
This way, gateway development and maintenance will be more abstract, improving the potential for automating the mediation process, as it will operate closer to the domain knowledge, as well as provide semi-automatic adaptation of two levels of abstraction, namely data and ontologies, as part of a services invocation process on a SOA platform.
Finally, the UPM School of Computing’s team will also undertake the development and production of Mobile Web applications to cover the new requirements and opportunities emerging in major electronic commerce scenarios within the insurance sector.
Morfeo open source software
This project is also part of the Morfeo Open Source Software Community, a key building block for achieving the maximum dissemination of the results within both the insurance sector and the scientific community specializing in the technologies under development.
The kick-off meeting led by Telefónica I+D was held recently at E2000’s technology headquarters in the Asturian town of Pravia. E2000 claims that this is an unparalleled initiative, the first electronic services R&D&I project in the Spanish insurance sector. Insurance sector directors regard the PRIMA project as being a great opportunity for insurance mediation as an insurance distribution channel, because it will improve its position in the value chain of tomorrow’s insurance industry.
