The TD Insurances Essay Example for Free

The TD Insurances Essay TD Insurances is a small business providing insurance for cars, run by Thomas Davidson. He started the business one year ago after being made redundant as a factory worker assembling car parts. He has used his knowledge from his previous job and gradually built up his business although he has no employees working for him at the moment. However his wife helps him with the paperwork when she can. Thomas works full- time from his home study, which is located in the heart of Streatham. In the past year Thomas has had a lot of experience dealing with customers and clients. He now has a number of devoted customers who frequently contact him when the renewal for their car insurance is due. Thomas usually interacts with his customers over the phone from his study; sometimes however he does conduct business at the home of his customer to their convenience. When Thomas finds an interested client he firstly explains to the client everything that is involved in the policy. In order for Thomas to calculate the insurance quote, he uses a calculator, a record of tables with the insurance ratings and his diary where he notes all the information down. Thomas insurance ratings show a different variety of things the first table is the insurance group, which shows the basic cost for a car depending on the cars price and power. The more expensive and powerful the car, higher the basic cost. Thomas then adjusts the basic by multiplying by various factors, which could affect the insurance. Age is also a factor, the older the driver is, and the less they are considered as a risk. Sex is also a factor; a female is considered as a less of a risk than males. The area you live in is also a criteria which Thomas considers before issuing an insurance quote, if you live in a high risk sensitive are you are likely to pay more. The customer can then choose what type of insurance he would like; third party only, third party fire and theft or fully comprehensive. TD Insurance Services also offer an extra driver criterion, which can be added at an increased cost. Thomas then offers a discount to the customers if they have had no claims varying from the past year or five years. Thomas then calculates the quote by multiplying the basic cost with all the factor multipliers and seeing if they can get a discount and then giving the customer the final result. Thomas writes all of the things discussed and quotations in his diary. If the client agrees to go ahead with the policy after hearing the final cost, Thomas gives an appointment to the customer to come and collect the insurance policy. Sometimes Thomas may in person deliver the policy at the customers house if it is more convenient to them. Thomas does possess a computer and laptop at home, which his children use for educational purposes. Thomas has very little knowledge about using computers, however to produce the insurance policies which are word-processed his daughter helps him and recently Thomas has started to produce the policies by himself since he is gradually learning to use a computer, even though he is slow with the typing. Thomas makes hand-written notes about all his clients, their details and policies, which is time consuming and can get tiring and boring despite having a computer due to his lack of computer skills. When the policy has been printed, the customer either comes to collect it or Thomas goes to deliver it. Furthermore sometimes Thomas wife also helps him with the paperwork, if there are too many customers wishing to have a quote ready. Thomas says that most of his customers find out about his business by word of mouth or from the consequence for the advert he has placed in the local newspaper, if he could he would also like to attract more customers to increase the standard of his living. Thomas Davidson finds the existing manual way he issues policies prolong and exhausting and would like to automate the system. He would also prefer to make more use of his laptop, however his lack of computer skills is a problem and therefore would like to be able to issue quotes on a simple and straightforward system. He would also like to automate the system so that it would be much faster to issue quotes and therefore would not have to spend too much time doing things manually. Since at the moment he hardly gets anytime to spend with his children especially when there is a heavy workload. Thomas feels that if he were able to get the system to be computerised he would like to employ some staff and expand and preferably shift into an office. USER REQUIREMENTS: My user is Thomas Davidson, who owns TD Insurances for whom I will be creating a computerised quotation system. He would like the following requirements to be taken into account. * To be able to see the total cost of the insurance quote. * To be able to see the total cost of the insurance quote before a discount is given. * To be able to print the quotation. * To make sure that system is safe and secure. * To be able to quickly do tasks such as looking up the costs. * To be able to quickly search for different types of quotes. * To be able to see the details of all the customers such as; forename, surname, age, and the type of insurance they would like. * To be able to store the issued quotes so that they can be used at a later date. * To enable phone enquiries to be dealt much quickly. * To make the system user- friendly. * To make sure the data entered is accurate. * To make the system look professional, systematic and organised. QUANTITATIVE OBJECTIVES: * To use a formula to work out the total cost of the insurance quote. * To use another formula to work out the cost of the quote excluding the discount. * To be able to print multiple copies of the quotes. * To make the system password protected so a password will be needed in order to enter the system. * To be able to lookup the costs of the different types of quotes. * To make sure the details about the customers names, surnames, addresses, age and other details can be seen. * To be able to use a command button so data can be stored. * To use drop down boxes to be able to select options. QUALITATIVE OBJECTIVES: * To make the system user- friendly I will create a user interface so that it is easy to move around the system. * To make the system look professional and organised. PERFORMANCE CRITERIA: * The system should be able to use a formula in order to work out the total cost of the insurance quote. * The system should be able to use a calculation in order to work out the cost of the insurance excluding the discount. * The system should be able to print multiple copies of the insurance quotation. * The system should be password enable, so a password will be needed in order to access the system to make sure the system is safe. * The system should be able to lookup the costs of the quotation. * The system should be able to store the issued quotes so that they can be used at a later date. * The system should show all the details about the customers such as names, surnames, addresses and other details. * The system should have drop down boxes so the user can select options quickly and easily. NEW SYSTEM: In order to produce the car insurance quotation system I will be using spreadsheet software for many reasons. In a spreadsheet I can use many of the features which will enable me to produce an efficient quotation system. I can use macros, list boxes, combo boxes, V Lookup, IF statements and other features in the system. There is other software such as a word- processor, or a database but they are not suitable for this quotation system because they do not have the features that a spreadsheet does. In a spreadsheet I can use formulas to calculate costs, which is unavailable in a word- processor or a database. INPUT, PROCESSES AND OUTPUT: Input: I will input all the data required using a keyboard into the spreadsheet. The input data I will need in order to produce the quotation system are all the customer details and the headings. I will require the following specifics about the customers: forename, surname, address, sex, model and make of the car. I will also need the age of the driver, which will be in a grouped arrangement e.g. 17- 19 or 60- 65. The type of insurance the driver wants will also be required whether it is, fully comprehensive, third party only or third party fire and theft. I will abbreviate the type of insurance to make it shorter so it would be much quicker to type and also easier. I will also need to know what type of area the driver lives in, as this could be a risk factor, either low, medium or high. I will also need to know if the driver would like to state an extra driver or not. I will also need to know the number of claims the driver has made in the past 4 years and whether he is eligible for a disc ount. The other details I will need to know is about the insurance and which rating the cars are allocated according to their power and cost. I will also need to know about the multipliers so that I can work what I need to multiple the cost, these will be allocated to the sex, age of driver, risk of area and insurance and type. Processes: In order to create the quotation system I will need to carry out a number of processes with the input data in order to produce the output. Once the data has been entered I will need to rename the worksheets and insert a defined name for certain data which will be used in calculations. Option buttons are used for choosing one from a list of options, where you can select one option button at a time. I will be using them so the user can select the sex of the driver, either male or female. Combo boxes can also be called drop- down boxes, which offer a number of choices to the user, one of which maybe selected. I will be using a combo box so that my user can select the drivers car. By selecting on the drop- down arrow will provide the models of the cars. A list box and combo boxes are alike however a list box shows the choices available without having to click on the arrow. I will be using a list box for the risk assessment of the area and type of insurance, as there are only three options from which the user can select. A check box is a box, which can either be selected or unselected, when you click on the box a tick appears in the box. I will be using a check box for the declaration of the extra driver. A spinner is made up of two arrows, one points up and the other down. By clicking on the up arrow increases the value and the down arrow decreases the value. I will be using the spinner to choose the number of years the driver has made no claims. A V Lookup searches for a value in the leftmost column of a table, and then returns a value in the same rows from a column you specify in the table. I will be using a V Lookup formula since I will having different things on different sheets it will need to lookup the values in other cells. I will also be using IF statements in order to see the values of the check box. Macro is a feature that stores a series of commands so that the user can use them with a single command. I will be using macros for various things such as printing the quote, storing the quotes, to view the quotes and other tasks. I will then use a formula to calculate the total cost of the insurance quote and also without the discount. In order to make the quote, which will be printed; much professional and organised I will be adding the name of the company, address, telephone numbers and the company logo at the top. I will also arrange all the information into sections and add colour to make it look more attractive. I will create the macros into buttons so the user can quickly carry the tasks. I will also add a front end to the system. A front end is the name given to the user-friendly interface that will appear on the screen when the file is loaded. It will provide the user with a number of options. Output: The output will be the full quote details, which will be on the screen of the computer showing the customer name, address, car details, the cost of the insurance and without the discount. The output on the screen will also show the macros, which can be used to navigate around the system. The other output will be the fully modified and professional printed quote that will show the company logo long with the companys address and contact numbers. It will also show the issue date, all the details about the quote and the expiry date of the quote.