KLP cuts claims processing to minutes with Red Hat OpenShift

Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP), Norway’s largest pension company, started a large change program to strengthen its market position with automation and new technology. To succeed with this new strategy, KLP required a modern pension platform that supports high-quality customer and member services while maintaining low costs. Working with Red Hat partner Accenture, KLP created a container- and microservices-based platform using Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes. Combined with a collaborative DevOps approach and operational support from Accenture, KLP now has a foundation for custom development for several teams, as well as a highly automated DevOps approach.

Benefits:

  • Improved case management efficiency
  • Improved provisioning times for DevOps collaboration
  • Created stable, consistent foundation for future hybrid cloud adoption

Accelerating insurance policy decisions by modernizing IT architecture 

In the insurance industry, customers expect providers to make decisions on coverage, pension benefits, and other services quickly—in days, hours, or even minutes. Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP), Norway’s largest pension company, is responsible for managing municipal and county pensions and mutual insurance. With total assets of NOK 750 billion, KLP serves more than 300 municipal and county authorities, 31 health trusts, and more than 2,000 public sector companies.

At KLP, processing pension applications required complex manual tasks, making case management a time-consuming effort. To accelerate its pension processes, make them more user-friendly, and stay competitive against new digital-centric providers, KLP’s life and pension division began a five-year change program. Working with professional services company Accenture, KLP decided to automate its manual processes and adopt a DevOps approach, supported by a microservices-based IT architecture.

“The change program includes rewriting applications to support modern business processes, as well as moving from complex, resource-intensive Java™ Enterprise Edition [Java EE] to more adaptable microservices technology,” said Tonny Gundersen, Managing Director, Advanced Technology & Architecture, Accenture.

Adopting an enterprise container platform for microservices-based pension processes

After evaluating Kubernetes solutions, KLP and Accenture decided to deploy Red Hat OpenShift as the foundation of the new pension process architecture.
“KLP needed a Kubernetes platform with strong support for DevOps,” said Gundersen. “We recommended Red Hat OpenShift because it promotes developer collaboration, improves productivity, and simplifies environment provisioning. These are important capabilities for large, custom development projects. It’s also backed by Red Hat’s expert, enterprise support.”

Accenture deployed Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes platform for efficient, responsive development, running in a private cloud environment. Two years into the five-year timeline, started after the blueprint and roadmap phase in 2018, KLP now has several microservices running in containers on Red Hat OpenShift with processes for pension applications. “Red Hat OpenShift has been central in our efforts to create a new and improved case management solution,” said Kjetil Gudmundsen, Head of IT Governance, KLP.

Enhancing customer and developer experiences with Red Hat OpenShift and microservices

Improved case management efficiency

KLP has used its new technology approach to meet a key goal of its change program: automating and improving case management. Its microservices-based approach, supported by the built-in automation capabilities of Red Hat OpenShift, has helped the company establish a stable yet flexible production environment for case management. As a result, KLP can continue to stay competitive and keep its services relevant.

Headquarters

Oslo, Norway

Industry

Financial services

Size

1,000 employees

Software

Red Hat® OpenShift®

Partners

Accenture

Icon-Red_Hat-Media_and_documents-Quotemark_Open-B-Red-RGB Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform has been central in our efforts to create a new and improved case management solution.

Kjetil Gudmundsen

Head of IT Governance, KLP

Icon-Red_Hat-Media_and_documents-Quotemark_Open-B-Red-RGB Red Hat OpenShift makes it easier to support DevOps teams with the right tools and environments.

Tonny Gundersen

Managing Director, Technology, Accenture

Improved provisioning times for DevOps collaboration

KLP has adopted a DevOps approach to support collaboration across teams in the change program, totaling more than 100 people. With a flexible, responsive IT foundation from Red Hat OpenShift, KLP can rapidly add teams to different projects to create and customize features and quickly deliver them to production.

Additionally, Red Hat OpenShift automated provisioning of customized environments for testing and production, helping teams use self-service capabilities to get started on new projects or transition to new application life-cycle phases quickly. 

“Provisioning environments manually requires a lot of time-consuming script and code creation,” said Gundersen. “Red Hat OpenShift makes it easier to support DevOps teams with the right tools and environments.”

Created a consistent foundation for future hybrid cloud

Although Accenture currently operates KLP’s pension process infrastructure on Microsoft Azure, Red Hat OpenShift provides a consistent foundation across on-premise, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure. KLP now has the infrastructure to expand to their choice of public cloud providers.

Accelerating the pace of a strategic digital journey

They are also evaluating expanding the platform to additional teams and use cases within KLP.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, it offers Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services. Its 514,000 people serve clients in more than 120 countries. accenture.com

About KLP

Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP) is Norway's largest life insurance company. KLP provides pensions, finance, and insurance services to municipalities, county authorities, health enterprises, and to businesses both in the public, and to their employees. https://www.klp.no/en

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