Case study: Sanlam

Sanlam’s SanQuote

The Sanlam Group is one of South Africa’s top financial institutions, providing risk and savings offerings to individuals, businesses and trusts. They required a unified quotation system for their network of 6500 intermediaries, and they commissioned Jam Warehouse to develop it.

Our custom quotation system, SanQuote, is fully integrated with Sanlam’s other systems, including Magnum, the most advanced underwriting system in the SA insurance industry. It works with Magnum to ensure that all risks are correctly assessed and then generates multiple quotations for each client using Sanlam’s savings and risk calculation systems.

Three key features of SanQuote have been well received by its users: simplified client data capture, the real-time quotation engine and the automated application process. Authorised staff can check customer information directly off Sanlam’s mainframe, and can easily update them or capture new client details if necessary.

The automated application process ensures that the intermediary captures all the necessary details. The application is then sent to Sanlam’s Auto New Business back-end system for fulfilment. All the client information, including the quotation and application documentation, is retained in a central repository.

A hierarchical classification method allows Sanlam to create new products rapidly using its existing knowledge. SanQuote therefore also acts as an effective platform for ongoing product development at Sanlam.

SanQuote forms part of Sanlam’s S-Net Suite, which is updated up to 3 times a year. It is a Winforms application built using domain-driven design methodology. It uses an external repository of over 1600 business rules identified by business and systems analysts.

SanQuote is built on the Microsoft .NET 2.0 platform and uses SQL Server and object-relational mapping for data retrieval and storage. The user interface design leads users through the interface step by step, rather than assuming proficiency, and sophisticated interface components give it a polished and user-friendly look and feel.

In the course of this project, our team of developers, systems analysts, application architects and project managers has gained great experience and specialist knowledge of the financial sector.