THE INSURANCE DATA SYSTEM

For over two decades, short-term insurers belonging to the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) have been able to contribute to and access a claims database known as the Insurance Data System (IDS). In 2012 an updated version of the system was launched, which included a streamlined process for submitting data.

Charles Hitchcock, SAIA’s chief operations officer, says the IDS was developed by SAIA with international data agency TransUnion being the technical service provider. The IDS was created to combat fraud in the short-term insurance industry, and it consists of a transactional policy database and a transactional claims database. Hitchcock says participating insurers contribute on a give-to-get basis – in other words, you have to contribute data to be able to retrieve data. Although there are larger SAIA members using the system, not all SAIA members are participants, he says.

The IDS contains your claims data across insurers for the past seven years. For example, if, within that period, you had car insurance with one insurer, switched to another, and now have your car cover with a third, there will be a record of all your claims at the three insurers, much in the same way that TransUnion’s credit-record database contains your credit history.