DavidShield Tackles IFRS 17 with SLOPE

The Challenge

Limited Visibility, Low Confidence

DavidShield’s model was built with VBA and Excel, and it was complex and slow. “It was a black box,” says Ran Mizrachi, CEO of DavidShield, “And from my position, all I wanted to do was understand the impacts of the changes we were exploring and the potential outcomes – when I was put in front of hundreds of Excel sheets, I found myself losing trust in the model.”

Their datasets only continued to grow in size, and it became clear that managing their actuarial work in a home-built solution wasn’t an option. “On a good day, runs took 3 hours; on a bad one, they’d take up to 24. If there was an error, there goes the whole day – you have to rerun it and wait for results tomorrow,” shares Eldad Brosh, actuary at DavidShield.

Looming Requirements

In addition to their growing runtimes, they had compliance needs that had to be met. IFRS 17 is a deep, complicated regulatory standard that was implemented in January 2023. For new insurance companies, becoming compliant with these complex regulations is a large hurdle that has to be overcome quickly.

Impersonal Solutions

DavidShield hired an actuary consulting company, Actuit, and began exploring the market and met with several vendors who had IFRS 17 modules in place. However, it was clear that they weren’t looking to do anything more than sell a pre-built package. “They weren’t looking to help us build something together,” says Mizrachi, “Even with their steep price tags, these providers still wouldn’t have given us the support we needed to get off the ground. There wasn’t any tailoring to our company’s situation.”

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“SLOPE as a platform is so simple and straightforward”

Eldad Brosh, Actuary

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The Solution

A Provider That Listens

While they were looking for a solution, Irena Vayero, CEO of Actuit, suggested that they take a look at SLOPE. After seeing the platform in action, Mizrachi was confident that the platform would support their unique product set while also tackling the challenges of IFRS 17. 

SLOPE’s user interface was friendly and easy to understand and had strong reporting capabilities that met DavidShield’s needs.  The level of service and support provided in the onboarding experience gave them confidence that SLOPE would help them meet their unique requirements.

The Results

Smooth Transition

Getting familiar with SLOPE was easy with the hands-on approach of onboarding and the expertise of their actuarial representative. “We were able to implement our model quickly and gained a strong understanding of SLOPE – kudos to the Slope team,” acknowledges Brosh.

Power & Transparency

“SLOPE as a platform is so simple and straightforward,” shares Brosh, “It makes the model more understandable. Uploading tables, changing and developing variables, and reading the results of the model is all so easy to do.” 

DavidShield is no longer bogged down tracing calculations through multiple spreadsheets and waiting long hours back for results. Also having reduced their 24 hour runs by 95% down to a single hour, they can now focus on the things that matter most to growing their business. “Getting rid of these manual efforts and automating processes with SLOPE has greatly expedited our development cycle,” shares Mizrachi.

A Clear Path Forward

With their models converted and teams running at speed, DavidShield is quickly moving forward on their IFRS 17 compliance journey with confidence. “No matter what way you look at it, IFRS 17 will be a complicated thing,” Mizrachi shares, “But looking back, choosing SLOPE was the right decision. We’ve found the platform that gives us the flexibility we need and the company that provides us with cooperation and creativity necessary to meet our goals.

He continues, “It’s important to have someone who understands your business and collaborates with you to create the best results and get you the answers you need. That’s what we found in SLOPE.”