Legal and regulatory requirements for insurance companies have increased enormously in recent years. Regulations from legislators, auditors, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the new EU GDPR, or ISO certification measures mean that IT security and compliance must consistently adapt to ever-growing demands. One essential step is the implementation of an Identity & Access Management (IAM) solution. It contributes significantly to improving IT security and compliance by ensuring that authorization assignments are secure, correct, and traceable.

The Provinzial NordWest Group recognized the importance of Identity & Access Management at an early stage and has relied on external IAM specialists from the start. Dr. Ralf Hirning from Ruhloff & Dauner in Stuttgart has been supporting the IAM team of Provinzial NordWest for 10 years with his unique expertise.

With his involvement, the following has been achieved:

• The successful implementation of the Micro Focus NetIQ Identity Manager, continuously adapted and further developed to meet growing requirements.
• Development of a web-based administration interface through which more than 8,000 individual authorizations can be assigned.
• Development of compliance-compliant recertification and reporting for these individual authorizations.
• Development of an access management system for the Provinzial NordWest customer portal including two-factor authentication.

The benefits that IAM implementation has brought to Provinzial NordWest in the areas of IT security and compliance over the years are enormous. Anke Seidlitz, a Provinzial employee who has been part of the IAM project team from the beginning, particularly appreciates the high response speed during audits:

Answering questions from auditors such as “Who had specific permissions at a given time and who approved them?” is no longer a challenge for us.

Close support from Dr. Ralf Hirning is also planned for the coming years. Since the beginning of the year, he has been joined by another IAM consultant from Ruhloff & Dauner. Their tasks include planning and executing a version upgrade of the highly complex IAM environment and connecting additional target systems to the Micro Focus NetIQ Identity Management System.

About Provinzial NordWest

The Provinzial NordWest Insurance Group is the second-largest public insurance group in Germany. With total premium income of around €3.5 billion, the company ranks among Germany’s major insurance providers. Approximately 6,000 employees work for the group in internal and field service roles, along with around 480 trainees. The Provinzial NordWest Insurance Group includes Westfälische Provinzial Versicherung AG, Provinzial Nord Brandkasse AG, Hamburger Feuerkasse Versicherungs-AG, and Provinzial NordWest Lebensversicherung AG. The companies of the Provinzial NordWest Group are deeply rooted in Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Hamburg. They are committed to social and cultural engagement, loss prevention, and both grassroots and professional sports.

Are you interested in further details about this project? Don’t hesitate to contact Ruhloff & Dauner!