literature review on insurance management system

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INSURANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
BY
UTULU KENNETH ONYEKA
1003030034
TO BE SUBMITED TO
THE COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE,
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
JOSEPH AYO BABALOLA UNIVERSITY, IKEJI ARAKEJI, OSUN STATE
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (B.Sc.)

ABSTRACT
Insurance system automates the management of insurance activities, which involves Defining Policies, Schemes, Policy Specifications, Policy Terms and Conditions, Policies registrations by the customers, Facilitates the Premiums Flexi-Pay modes, Policy Bonus in Flexible periods.
The Agents are involved in the process of the Customer Policy registration and the Commissions are based on the targets achieved by the Agents. Insurance System also maintains the database of the Branch Managers who deals with the Agents which in turn deals with the Customers. Before developing this application all activities done manually, then all the activities take more time and also take more manpower. Commission, interests, dues calculate manually, based on this manual problem sometimes calculate the wrong
All related information passed one branch to another branch through courier. Sometimes miss the important documents. So these problems overcome when we will develop the system. This system is very helpful to automation of entire Insurance system and also reduces the time and manpower.

1. CHAPTER ONE 1.1 INTRODUCTION
Insurance is the most commonly mechanism of managing risk. The term risk is defined as the possibility that positive expectations of a goal oriented system will not be fulfilled. Risk is generally classified into two broad categories:
- Speculative Risks which may bring in speculative losses or sometimes speculative profits as well.
- Pure risks which are fortuitous in nature and will potentially bring in only losses. Insurance covers only pure risk with an element of uncertainty about their occurring, effective insurance management system aims at optimisation of cover for economical cost and also ensuring availability of protection when it is most needed.
An insurance transaction has always been viewed purely in financial terms i.e. the company paying a consideration called premium and in return receiving a promise to be compensated monetarily, for the losses suffered due to operation of insured perils. However, the concept of insurance management system is much wider in scope than the mere financial implications of costs and benefits of an insurance transaction.
Background of the study
Insurance Market consists of the buyers of insurance and the sellers together with the intermediaries (agents) who bring the two together. In addition there are also the regulators, representative bodies or organizations, consultants and technical advisers which are part and parcel of the market.
The Buyers
Anyone who has valid insurable interest i.e., legally recognized relationship with property or pecuniary interest, can insurer their interest. The relationship may arise through ownership, part-ownership or responsibility for goods, or liability to pay damages or certain benefits.
In Nigeria the buyers of insurance can be segmented as follows:
• Individuals and families
• Governments (federal, state, local) and their agencies
• Parastatals
• Multinationals
• Conglomerates
• Manufacturing industrial concerns
• Small and medium scale industries
• Banking industry
• Health institutions
• Tourist and hospitality industries, hotels
• Transport industry
• Other corporate bodies
• Educational institutions
• Oil and energy industry
For marketing purposes the buyers can further be segmented to suit the strategy of the insurer, or the insurance agent.
The Sellers
The sellers or suppliers of insurance are the insurance companies and the reinsurance companies. At present there are about 118 registered insurance companies and 5 registered reinsurance companies. Most of the insurance companies are incorporated pursuant to Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990. About 106 of them are private limited liability companies while the rest are public companies. About sixty companies underwrite life assurance business with five operating as specialist life offices. The reinsurers provide technical security and capacity for the insurance companies and do not supply insurance directly to the consumers.
The Intermediaries (Agents)
The intermediaries are mainly insurance brokers and insurance agents. There are 350 registered insurance brokers and about 15,000 insurance agents. The different types of agents have been described earlier in chapter eleven. Nigerian insurance market has been described as brokers market because presently brokers control over 90 per cent of the premium income, leaving less than 10 per cent for insurance agents, and even direct marketing channel by insurers. However, insurance agents dominate the individual life insurance market.
The banking industry has become a formidable channel for distributing insurance services not necessarily as intermediaries, but by facilitating a form of direct marketing by insurers. Participation by banks has also thus made mass merchandizing of those insurance products possible. To enrich some of the financial products banks offer certain insurance protection as additional benefits. For example an investor is promised three or four times the capital amount invested in case of death, payment of benefits in the event of accident, payment of children’s school fees, and insurance cover for goods bought on credit. To meet such obligations, they apply part of the interest due to the investors to purchase insurance on their behalf from insurance companies. This is however different from universal banking which implied direct involvement in insurance broking and underwriting.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Since risk as formed an integral part of our world today, the need arise for insurance in other to combat such risk in our society. 4 major problems arises when trying to create a system to manage such risk, they are risk identification, evaluation, control and financing.
The multi disciplinary nature of risk management requires input from all the arrears of the organization. Therefore, the task of identifying and evaluating risks is a problem. Risk control including avoidance and reduction clearly falls within the ambit of corporate safety policy. Protection of property and personnel through effective risk control measures, assumes great significance, particularly in the light of the opportunity costs due to occurrence of a risk (i.e. accident). Risk financing has developed into an important technique of effective risk management, where by costs and benefits of various alternatives are analyzed before arriving at the final decision on what type of insurance to be used.
The existing system is the manual system. The manual system is prone to error. It is time consuming. It is very difficult for a person to produce the report. There are chances for changing the scheme report and do malpractice. This system involves a lot of manual entries with the applications to perform the desired task. Usage of papers in the payment process leads to less efficiency, less accuracy and less productivity.
• Increasing expenditure for papers shuffling and storage.
• Increasing labours and hence errors.
• Less control of Amounts.
• Time delay between the payment and its receipt.
• Persons who are present in different part of the world cannot transact efficiently.

1.2
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SYSTEM
This system is an online micro insurance Analysis and information management system that provides easy access of information regarding the people and resources of insurance. This site is not a static site but with wonderful dynamic facilities like search tools for insurance awareness articles, guidelines, illustrations through images for visitors. This site also provides several dynamic features.
The developed system should allow admin users to register insured persons with their name, date of birth, residence address, medical history and also policy details. After registering all the insured persons, website should provide management facilities like delete unwanted persons’ data. And also should provide awareness to the visitors about micro insurance through articles.
Objectives of the system
The system would be able to perform two main objectives which are:Functional and qualitative objectives. The functional objectives of the system are;
1. Enable users to select what kind of risks is to be insured
2. Cost of such insurance
3. Registration of customers
4. Show the benefits of using such type of cover
5. Explain what insurance policy in general is available. The qualitative objective of the system is mainly to define the corporate insurance philosophy, firsthand knowledge of the risk involved

2. CHAPTER TWO 2.1 2.2PROPOSED SOLUTION PROPOSED SYSTEM
The proposed system is designed to eliminate the drawbacks of the existing system. It is designed by keeping to eliminate the drawbacks of the present system in order to provide a permanent solution to the problems. The primary aim of the new system is to speedup transactions. The report is prepared for the schemes and implemented by the concerned officials. Since the advent of Online Insurance services in the Middle Ages Policy Agents and policy Holder have used paper-based instrument to move money between Insurance transactions. It comes as no surprise to one that when everything is being converted to computerize. Already the business has to global with the coming of Internet. Now, no more the individual aims at the local market is also just a click of button away. Dozens of companies are in the race to convince auction and bidding that a pot of Policy’s awaits those who conduct their business on the Internet. In this fast race of business and moneymaking, no country, no company and no individual want to fall back. Everyone wants to lead the group. Hence, everyone is trying to make the best use of Internet.

The insurance company provides Group Polices to employees of various small and medium sized companies that registered with it. A group policy is one, which an employer provides to its employees. An agent is responsible for getting the client companies establishing a relation with the insurance company.
According to his\her need, the policyholder can choose from various products available.
The insurance company needs to keep track of details of its target companies, agents, policyholders, their premium payments and the various products that are available with it.
Hence it is under tremendous pressure maintaining their day-to-day activities, which is currently being done manually.
Entire records have to be updated timely; even a slight mistake could complicate things. It is very difficult to handle bulk data since human memory is weaker than electronic counter part. It is time consuming to summarize these details to produce the reports.
Hence there is need for an automated system, which can efficiently manage the company’s records, provides instant access and one that improves the productivity. As a result of this automated system, the activities of the company are performed with in the stipulated time and the reliable and efficient service is ensured to its users. The part of the proposed system contain the following
1) Agent Registration form: New Agent gives their information like, Name, password, Ac no, bank, working details, age, sex, address, e-mail id.
2) Policy Holder Registration form: New Policy Holder gives their information like, Name, password, Ac no, bank, Organization, Occupation, age, sex, address, e-mail id.
3) Admin form: Admin have provision to view all Agent, Policy, and Policy Holder information. First Admin enter their name and Id then only they can access. And also admin have the provision to view, Modify, Delete and insert the Policy, Policy Holder, and Agent.
4) Agent Form: This module is used for agent to view all details about their policy holder/clients and also view their own personal details.
5) Policy Holder Form: This module is used to Policy Holders. They can view their own personal details when login into the Policy Holder module.

Fig 2.2.3 dataflow in the system 2.3 ADVANTAGES OF USING THE SYSTEM
• Mortgage Redemption- The system act as an effective tool to cover mortgages and loans taken by the policy holders so that in case of any unforeseen event, the burden of repayment does not fall on the bereaved family.
• Risk cover -life is full of uncertainties; in this scenario the use of the system ensures that one enjoys a good quality of life against any unforeseen event.
• Planning for life stage needs-life insurance provides financial support in the event of untimely death but also acts as a long term investment. You can meet your goals, be it your children’s education, their marriage, building your dream home or planning a relaxed retired life, according to your life stage and risk appetite. Traditional insurance policies i.e. traditional endowment plans, offer in-built guarantees and defined maturity benefits through variety of product options such as money back, guaranteed cash values.
• Protection against rising health expenses-with the system available, customers can choose from a wide range of plans that would offer the benefits of protection against critical diseases and hospitalization expenses. This benefits has assumed critical importance given the increasing incidence of lifestyle diseases and escalating medical costs.
• For safe and profitable long-term investment-it builds a long-term savings instrument, also ensures that the customers have a good savings habit. Insurance is a highly regulated sector, the regulatory body,through various rules and regulations ensures that the safety of the policyholder’s money is the primary responsibility of all stakeholders.
• Peace of Mind: When consumers buy an insurance policy, they can achieve peace of mind. There is a comfort in knowing there is a certain measure of protection from unforeseen tragedies and losses.
• Asset Protection: Certain types of insurance policies are designed to protect assets such as homes, cars, boats and other valuable tangible items. The policies will repair or replace these things if they are lost or destroyed.
• Physical Protection -Some insurance policies are structured to protect the body. In the event that a person is injured, disabled or otherwise physically harmed, these products will compensate for those damages.
• Income Protection-There is insurance policies available that will protect the ability to earn a living. If, for some reason, a worker is no longer able to continue with gainful employment, these policies can be structured to replace a majority of lost income.
• Lifestyle Protection-A certain type of insurance is designed to ensure that the lifestyle to which a family has become accustomed will continue for a certain period if a tragedy occurs and the major wage earner in the household is no longer able to produce an income. 2.4 DISADVANTAGES OF USING THE SYSTEM The system has the following drawbacks.
• Every member organization has its own data structure
• Due to lack of centralized data structure, it is very difficult to merge the data to analyze the statistics
• Difficult to search for a data
• Possibility of duplicates, etc 2.5 CASE STUDY; NIGERIAN INSURANCE MARKET
Insurance Market consists of the buyers of insurance and the sellers together with the intermediaries (agents) who bring the two together. In addition there are also the regulators, representative bodies or organizations, consultants and technical advisers which are part and parcel of the market.
In Nigeria the buyers of insurance can be segmented as follows:
• Individuals and families
• Governments (federal, state, local) and their agencies
• Multinationals
• Conglomerates
• Manufacturing industrial concerns
• Small and medium scale industries
• Banking industry
• Health institutions
• Tourist and hospitality industries, hotels
• Transport industry
• Other corporate bodies
• Educational institutions
• Oil and energy industry
The sellers or suppliers of insurance are the insurance companies and the reinsurance companies. At present there are about 118 registered insurance companies and 5 registered reinsurance companies. Most of the insurance companies are incorporated pursuant to Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990. About 106 of them are private limited liability companies while the rest are public companies. About sixty companies underwrite life assurance business with five operating as specialist life offices. The reinsurers provide technical security and capacity for the insurance companies and do not supply insurance directly to the consumers.
The banking industry has become a formidable channel for distributing insurance services not necessarily as intermediaries, but by facilitating a form of direct marketing by insurers. Participation by banks has also thus made mass merchandizing of those insurance products possible. To enrich some of the financial products banks offer certain insurance protection as additional benefits. For example an investor is promised three or four times the capital amount invested in case of death, payment of benefits in the event of accident, payment of children’s school fees, and insurance cover for goods bought on credit. To meet such obligations, they apply part of the interest due to the investors to purchase insurance on their behalf from insurance companies. This is however different from universal banking which implied direct involvement in insurance broking and underwriting.
And most of the activities of insurance between the individuals and such companies are done manually but with the creation of a web based system this could save time in transaction.

3. CHAPTER THREE 3.1 CONCLUSION
Effective insurance management lies in balancing the costs and benefits of insurance, through optimizing the coverage at economical cost and further through conscious and careful retention of risks within the world, This is precisely where the Online Insurance supports and improves many of the core functionality of the insurance organization i.e. insurance project helps in quick easy monitoring of the reports that have been automatically generated as and when the admin and policy agent performs transactions in the system. Using such a system helps the organization in minimizing the time consumed in fulfilling the day-to-day functionality’s and cutting down the expenses incurred on the same. It must also be remembered that insurance is a method of transferring the financial impact of risk and the risk itself. Hence the basic responsibility of the system is to act as a guild in risk management.

3.2 RECOMMENDATION With the internet already in vogue, the government should allow reduce tariffs on web usage in other for easy communication with people who would need such systems. With increased technologies around the world there is need for accessibility to such web based technologies and system.
Since the system involves risk management there is need for individuals to have reasons to have their businesses and life insured as this will enable them use such insurance management system.

REFERENCES
1. WIKIHOW.COM
2. WIKIPEDIA.COM
3. Seal, R. A. "Insurance for Libraries: Part I." Conservation Administration News no. 19 (1984): 8-9.
4. Seal, R. A. "Insurance for Libraries: Part II." Conservation Administration News no. 20 (1985): 10-11, 26.
5. EHOW.COM

References: 1. WIKIHOW.COM 2. WIKIPEDIA.COM 3. Seal, R. A. "Insurance for Libraries: Part I." Conservation Administration News no. 19 (1984): 8-9. 4. Seal, R. A. "Insurance for Libraries: Part II." Conservation Administration News no. 20 (1985): 10-11, 26. 5. EHOW.COM