Praveen Kumar Koppanati
The dynamics and determinants of commercial insurance are undergoing significant transformation, driven by several key factors, including advancements in technology, shifting regulatory landscapes, evolving business risks, and changing client expectations.
Praveen Kumar has transitioned from a QA Automation Engineer to a Software Developer, contributing to the development of a sophisticated commercial insurance suite within a large-scale team of approximately 300 professionals. The program to which he has made significant design contributions is tailored for agents and underwriters across all 50 states. It demands highly reliable software solutions, which Praveen has expertly designed and developed to ensure its effectiveness and robustness.
"The main emphasis of my responsibilities is on the development and testing of a number of key functional blocks in the system such as the one aimed at enhancing regulatory compliance in the United States among many others", he remarks. The team under him developed a tool using GOSU, the programming language of Guidewire's PolicyCenter, to efficiently identify and process the contacts on a policy during the OFAC screening process. Since an internal regime of OFAC https://ofac.treasury.gov/ set by the US Department of the Treasury has assiduously defined prohibitions which upon infringements may attract severe sanctions, it has become imperative for the insurance suite to comply with the dictates of this regime.
The system does not just process the transactions related to OFAC policies but also active policies which are at least 300,000 in a single day. This information which has been processed is well packaged and transported via SFTP connection observing the laws that govern the handling of such information and for a period of 20 minutes to LexisNexis. While developing the integration layer in Java in conjunction with vault integration for safe construction, all the challenges related to the sensitive data encasement and handling are managed successfully.
The focus of his work is on designing and implementing several key system components, one of which is a system which was recently developed to improve the tariffs according to US requirements. Working with GOSU, Guidewire's PolicyCenter programming language, he created functionality to refine filters for the relevant contacts of OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) requirements. In order for the insurance suite to be legal, it is necessary to observe the OFAC regulations issued by the US Department of Treasury due to the fact that noncompliance may result in large violation fines. His solution provides functionality whereby he is able to search all the active policies of any user at the time retrieving only about 300,000 records per day and provides them for OFAC screening only those contents that are appropriate. The resulting data is formatted and sent over securely via SFTP in compliance with regulatory data delivery requirements and is sent to LexisNexis for analysis within 20 minutes. The integration layer, entirely coded in Java, which he developed with Vault integration, ensures that all sensitive information is kept at the elevated levels of security with no compromise.
He contributed by modifying the existing enhancements to automation framework for the testing protocols of the insurance suite significantly. The Java-based framework had moderate end to end tests whose execution did take more than 10 minutes thus hindering efficiency. A new test framework built with JavaScript and Cucumber revolutionized this procedure by completing the test in less than two minutes. This new framework was incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline for easy execution of smoke tests and functional end to end tests prior to production release. The advancement led to improved speed of execution of tests but also fostered direct engagement of business analysts and product owners.
In the midst of many such endeavors, there is always one that is particularly tough; for him it is OFAC compliance-related work. It carries risks as the commercial insurance suite is required daily to submit regulatory compliance documents to the U.S. Department of Treasury. Failure to comply with this may result in fines running into millions. This concern has introduced its fair share of challenges, especially the loss of records which must be accounted for, with some reports indicating as many as 80,000 records lost in a single day. Resolving such concerns has not been an easy task, and among other things, he has effectively navigated the relevant database systems to find and incorporate data needed in compliance reports, so that the project meets the non-conformance and compliance criteria.
At present, Praveen is involved in the Amazon Web Service (AWS) based migration of Commercial insurance suite, which is aimed at improving the scalability, costs and even the resiliency of the inerudite insurance services. By leveraging the cloud based infrastructure of AWS, he intends to build a more functional, on-demand infrastructure whereby resources can be put up in line with the technical needs of the OFAC compliance processes. His job has consisted of learning about and constructing AWS elements silo, along with re-engineering the architecture for efficiency and cost lateral improvements especially while ensuring the daily delivery of OFAC compliance files in history. His appreciation for benefits associated with AWS for example scalability and failover capabilities places the insurance suite poised to respond more quickly to the changes that will come in future.
In conclusion, Praveen Kumar Koppanati has consistently exhibited a focus on security, compliance, and operational efficiency. His main achievements in this area include designing and implementing different modules, improving technical infrastructure, and making sure his work is within the limits of industry standards, all of which have enhanced the commercial insurance package's reliability and safety. He displays a high level of technical knowledge and a willingness to overcome complicated rules - attributes that have been a great advantage for the insurance suite in protecting its data from intrusive access while maintaining the trust of its users within a very information and legislation-centric environment.
