| VP/MS | |
| Created in | 1997 |
| Designed by | CSC |
| Typing discipline | dynamic |
| Influenced by | Microsoft Excel |
| License | corporate and individually negotiated |
| Website | www.csc.com |
VP/MS (Visual Product Modeling System) is a family of software components developed by CSC that support product development and product lifecycle management[1]. Insurance companies (among other users in business and IT[2]) use VP/MS to manage the rules, clauses, formulae and calculations associated with savings and both life and non-life insurance products. With VP/MS all calculations and queries for purposes such as quotes and administration are supported by a central repository of product definitions[1][3].
VP/MS supports processes like product definition and administration, product testing and documentation, design checks, visualization and cross-platform usage of products. In addition to hosting product definitions, VP/MS is a modeling language. It provides a graphical interface (GUI) for creating business rules as components and models[2].
VP/MS is platform independent[4] – products can be ported to any administration or illustration system or deployed over the internet[5] – and makes use of the Eclipse platform[6] for developing software.
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VP/MS is a product server[7] – a software tool that hosts all knowledge on insurance and other products centrally and provides it to application systems in various deployment scenarios and across various platforms.
The outcome of a VP/MS-designed model is modular, portable calculation rules[3][5]. VP/MS rendered calculation rules are in turn incorporated with associated applications, such as VP/MS Designer or J-VP/MS, to create (respectively) GUIs or a calculations architecture compatible with existing software architecture[5].
Systems used by insurance policy administrators, product brokers and web servers ultimately rely on libraries of VP/MS rendered architecture for the production of product illustrations and calculations[1].
VP/MS is industry-neutral[1] – it is a generic tool that is not designed to be used exclusively within a specific industry. VP/MS has been deployed within non-insurance applications as a general rules engine. However, since it was developed within an insurance context[7], VP/MS is applied broadly and extensively in insurance.
Among users of VP/MS are life insurers and providers of pensions.[8], property and casualty insurers[9] and health insurers[10]
Other sectors where VP/MS’s underlying rules management capabilities are applied include banking, energy and utilities.
VP/MS Workbench is the main environment for modeling in VP/MS[5]. As such, it is used extensively in the back office during the design or maintenance of product rules. Actuaries, financial modelers, business analysts, product specialists and programmers are among those using VP/MS during this phase[1].
A number of supplementary components support this phase of the product lifecycle. Examples are VP/MS Documentation Suite, VP/MS Test Suite and VP/MS Checker. Product managers use VP/MS Model Manager for an overview, product release and versioning, team collaboration and access control[3][5]. VP/MS Runtime is then responsible for sharing a single instance of a product across various platforms.
After the design phase, VP/MS hosted architecture is supplied to the organization via related applications. For example, IT specialists use VP/MS Designer and J-VP/MS to integrate model libraries with end-user applications.
J-VP/MS integrates VP/MS calculation rules into existing software architectures via standard interfaces and technologies such as Java EE, XML-based SOAP, WSDL and Struts[5].
1997 – VP/MS is developed by CAF GmbH (a German company) with Generali Austria as the first client. It is originally named Versicherungsprodukt-Modellierungssystem.
1998 – Development of VP/MS Designer.
2001 – CSC takes over ownership and development of VP/MS. Introduction of J-VP/MS and integration of VP/MS into CSC offerings.
2003 – Development of Eclipse-based VP/MS Model Manager.
2005 – Development of Eclipse-based VP/MS Test Suite.
2006 – Development of Eclipse-based VP/MS Documentation Suite.
2008 – Development of Eclipse-based Workbench and VP/MS Checker.
In 2009 there are over 140 companies in 24 countries using VP/MS, e.g. AXA, Generali and UNIQA. A market research source[11] listed the following VP/MS users in the USA in 2008: American National, New York Life, Ohio National and Symetra.