Tamis Underwriting Tool Provides Self-Screening ‘Real-time Interventions’ by Telephone, Web Chat or Email

20 November, 2008: Travel and Medical, operator of the TAMIS risk assessment system, has formed a partnership with IT support and software development consultancy Octavia Information Systems, to launch a white-labelled, online self-screening service. The enhanced risk assessment software will enable travel insurance providers to offer Travel and Medical’s TAMIS solution as a branded service directly to their customers.

TAMIS is an underwriting tool designed specifically to evaluate the risks associated with insuring pre-existing health conditions under travel insurance policies. It automatically calculates the recommended additional premium and/or increased excess for that travel insurance policy based upon the assessment of risk produced from the completion of an online questionnaire. London-based Octavia has worked alongside Travel and Medical to develop the risk management system so that it now allows Call Centre Operators to intervene in ‘real-time’ via telephone, web chat or email whilst an application is being completed online. 

This new system has been developed as a hybrid solution which will allow insurers providers to balance the efficiencies of web-based self-screening and the medical expertise of trained telephone operators. The web-based self-screening also ensures that applicants are not required to leave the sales process whilst making their travel insurance arrangements.

Travel and Medical CEO Rob Pole, comments, “This new integrated service will allow insurers to offer self-screening, and where necessary, seamlessly transfer customers to a trained call centre operator if they encounter any difficulties. This will allow insurers to reduce their loss ratios while allowing travellers to make full declarations with the minimal amount of fuss and bother.”

A major City insurer is now making the revised TAMIS solution available online for all of its broker offices.

Octavia’s Chief Executive Officer, Giles Sirett, comments, “Octavia has worked closely alongside Travel and Medical to support the redevelopment of TAMIS and we are now able to support insurance providers looking to incorporate this new online software within their own IT infrastructure.”

Octavia delivers technical services, solutions and support for organisations across a range of commercial and charitable vertical markets, as well as to the public sector – including organisations such as the Ministry of Defence, the Saatchi Gallery and Phillips de Pury.

Travel and Medical Insurance Services Limited was established in January 2002 and responds to over 40,000 calls in peak months and manages in excess of 250,000 cases a year. Customers include The Post Office and Yorkshire Building Society. The company is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and is a member of the Association of Travel Insurance Intermediaries (ATII).

About Travel and Medical
Travel and Medical is a privately owned Company specialising in the field of Pre Travel Risk Assessment and Health Screening. The company operates a purpose-built state of the art call centre, offering the highest level of service. Its own bespoke software system TAMIS® is now recognised as the UK’s leading Risk Management System, providing ease of use, detailed Management Information and full web access.
http://www.travelandmedical.co.uk

Jerome Mohamed re-joins Octavia Information Systems to bring data centre technologies to SMEs

06 November, 2008: London-based IT support and software development consultancy, Octavia Information Systems has appointed Jerome Mohamed as its new head of sales and marketing. He will be responsible for growing core elements of the business – including virtualised high-availability and business continuity solutions.

Mohamed moves to Octavia from web hosting and managed services provider Alentus UK where he managed the UK office after its acquisition of ISP Areti Internet in May 2008. Throughout this role he focussed on managed co-location, dedicated servers, leased line internet access, virtual/shared hosting, and specialist data centre virtualisation solutions.

In his new position at Octavia, Mohamed will use his experience of large ISP environments to roll-out a programme of delivering high-availability IT to SME’s.

Mohamed, comments: “I am returning to Octavia to expand our delivery of managed IT support and will be offering virtualised high-availability and business continuity solutions to SMEs – technology that has been previously reserved for enterprise-scale organisations.”

Prior to working for Areti, Cisco and Microsoft certified Mohamed worked at Octavia before leaving to begin working on an IT security venture. In his previous role as head of business development, Mohamed grew Octavia’s customer base from 35 to more than 100 – including bringing in art auctioneers Phillips de Pury & Company.

Octavia’s Chief Executive Officer, Giles Sirett, comments: “As someone who has been key in the growth of Octavia, we are all extremely pleased that Jerome is re-joining the company. His new wider commercial experience will be instrumental in our aggressive plans for growth.”

Saatchi Gallery adopts virtualised IT platform for increased storage capacity, disaster recovery and security control

09 October, 2008: London-based IT support and software development consultancy, Octavia Information Systems is on the brink of completing a high availability virtualised IT system for the new Saatchi Gallery. The solution, built around  VMware and Double-Take technologies, will be completed ahead of the gallery’s official opening on Thursday, 9th October – for its contemporary inaugural exhibition, The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.

The exhibition offers features a survey of recent paintings, sculpture and installation of 24 of China’s leading artists and will run until 18 January 2009. The art gallery, home to the collection of Charles Saatchi has relocated to the 70,000 sq. ft. Duke of York’s HQ building on King’s Road in Chelsea, South-West London.

Octavia was responsible for delivering the entire IT infrastructure of the new building, including all server provisioning, voice and data comms deployment, MS Exchange 2007 for email and MS SQL 2005 for data storage. High availability and provision for disaster recovery were achieved using a combination of technologies from VMWare and Double-Take.

The new IT infrastructure has enabled the Saatchi Gallery to have greater control over its file, database and e-mail security, whilst providing additional storage capacity for all core systems  such as enabling the gallery to maintain an extensive image repository of all artwork in a bespoke ‘image bank’.

The installation also gives visitors access to the Saatchi Gallery’s membership area, allowing visitors to self register for gallery membership using web terminals.

Nigel Hurst, Chief Executive at the Saatchi Gallery, comments, “Ahead of opening the gallery, IT has been about the last thing on my mind. We needed an out-of-sight system that could do what we needed and as such required a technology partner that could take an innovative approach to the specific needs of this unique organisation. Octavia have delivered just that with a stable, high availability system that we can rely upon.”

Octavia’s Chief Executive Officer, Giles Sirett, comments: “High availability systems have traditionally only been available to large organisations due to expensive deployment and maintenance costs. However, using these innovative technologies, we’re now able to offer SMEs cost-effective and highly reliable IT systems. This system for the Saatchi Gallery reduces the amount of hardware required, whilst providing increased resilience and future proofing options that will significantly reduce downtime.”

Octavia delivers technical services, solutions and support for organisations across a range of commercial and charitable vertical markets, as well as to the public sector – including the Ministry of Defence.

Admission to all shows at the Saatchi Gallery will be free, thanks to a sponsorship deal with art auctioneers Phillips de Pury & Company.

Phillips de Pury and Company is a dynamic forward thinking company and a major world player in the contemporary art, photography and jewellery auction market place.  Now occupying 3 sites in the capital, London is Phillips’ largest operation outside of the US.

Octavia have acted as Phillips’ UK IT partner for the past 3 years and helped them grow from 6 to 60 users in the UK through the provision of IT support for back office, auctions and events, IT project delivery and strategic advice on ICT.

Phillips de Pury have now signed a Managed IT Support Service Agreement to replace the Flexisupport Agreement that was previously in place.

The Managed IT Support Service Agreement will ensure constant onsite engineering presence in the UK backed up by Helpdesk support and proactive management.  Octavia will also support remote European and worldwide sites including Geneva, Berlin, Paris, Dubai and Beijing.

Charlie Horne MD of Phillips de Pury & Company says “I am excited that we have cemented our partnership with Octavia.  This should give us a platform to maximise our IT which is vital in allowing us to achieve our goals and objectives.”

Octavia’s Chief Operations Officer Nick Berry added “I am delighted that Phillips de Pury UK have opted to upgrade to our Managed Service offering.  It will enable us to move away from a break fix service and deliver a better IT experience to their UK users.”

A team of 10 staff from Octavia undertook the 4 Peak Challenge: to climb England’s 4 highest mountains in 30 hrs

As part of its 10th anniversary, Octavia Information Systems have undertaken a series of events to promote and fundraise for the Charity Dreams Come True, a UK children’s charity whose sole purpose is to fulfil the dreams of terminally and seriously ill children and young people aged 2 to 21.

In recent months Octavia have held a series of fundraising events including a charity raffle at its 10th anniversary dinner, a sponsored cricket event at a Middlesex Twenty20 cricket match and on the 18/19th July a team of 10 staff from Octavia undertook the 4 Peak Challenge. The challenge was to climb England’s 4 highest mountains in 30 hrs.

The team climbed Skiddaw and Helvellyn on Saturday in horrific conditions. Visibility was down to about 15 ft in any direction and the wind and rain was relentless. Going over the infamous striding edge on Helvellyn was treacherous and the path to descend down Swirrel Edge was missed completely due to the conditions. As a result the team had to walk an extra 3 miles down a safer, more obvious path.

Because of the terrible weather, not to mention the aching limbs, the ascent of Scafell and Scafell Pike on Sunday morning was delayed. This was a great move as the weather cleared up and the climb was much safer and more enjoyable. However this did lead to the decision to leave Scafell and head straight for the taller peak of Scafell Pike due to a lack of time.

Strictly speaking therefore the challenge was not completed but not through lack of endeavor or desire.

Geoff Higginbottom said “It was incredibly hard work and dangerous given the conditions but everyone enjoyed it and as a group we achieved our main goal, to raise a lot of money for Dreams Come True”

The total amount of funds raised from the Octavia 4 Peak Challenge was £3,639.82