For most travellers, travel insurance is taken care of before a trip and – thankfully – not given much thought once the trip is underway. Occasionally, however, travel insurance plays a much bigger role on a trip. When travellers get injured, their belongings get stolen, or a flight is cancelled, they often have to place a frantic phone call to their travel insurance provider.

Every year, more than one million of those calls go to SOS International, the world’s oldest emergency assistance company. Since 1961, the company has handled emergency calls for a long list of travel insurance companies. Such longevity in the industry testifies to their vast experience. But that longevity also comes with a downside: a dated and slow IT system.

Employees went through weeks of intensive training to learn how to operate it. They struggled to quickly find the right service provider. And the process of moving the cases through the case and claims management system was slow. That needed to change.

Finding the right service provider fast

The new system needed to speed things up as well as make sure that everyone, including the insurance companies, the medical service providers, and the customers, were either paid or reimbursed.

To serve this purpose, Netcompany built a modern platform using cloud technologies and a microservice architecture.

»The new platform ensures that SOS International manages cases much more efficiently. It automatically reroutes the customers to the best medical and transport providers in the area, it makes it easier for the employees to open and handle cases, and it makes it a lot easier and faster to figure out who should pay and be paid for what,« Thomas Cordth says.

»Once the customer returns from the vacation, the case has been prepared and it’s fast and easy for the customer to be reimbursed if they had to pay for anything. It also makes it simpler for the service providers and insurance companies to settle any outstanding amounts,« says Thomas Cordth.

Easier workdays, lower costs, and better customer service

The system has improved the customer experience, made workdays less stressful for employees, and decreased SOS International’s operational costs. The innovative system is also so easy to operate that it now takes new employees days and not weeks to master it, resulting in significantly lower costs for SOS International.

On top of all that, the system was built quickly.