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I work the other side of the insurance game; I write software that helps people manage billables and file insurance claims. So frankly, I don't know how insurance software could ever have bugs, since from my experience, it's all basically this:
if (Claim.ChargeAmount > 0)
{
Claim.Status = ClaimStatus.Denied;
}
else
{
Claim.PaidAmount = 0;
}
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Oh, poop, now you've reminded me of having to write code to generate bills in EDI format...  back to therapy...
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Oh gads, EDI format... Not so bad once you get to know it, but ye-gods, what a learning curve...
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Marc Clifton wrote: and some math
So you can just forget most developers being able to do it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Back in the very late 90's I put in a stint at an insurance company, I was astonished just how much of their business was dependent on spreadsheets. I had to quit as I refused to write any more excel macros.
Five years later the company went tits up as they had no control of their products and systems, it was a huge scandal in Oz.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I'm probably swimming against the wave here, but I don't quite get the point of this post.
ALL software has bugs. Why should insurance business be any different? In a way, everything comes down to ones and zeroes, so why bugs should exist at all, right?
If you find the job soooo boring, I think it's time for you to find another job that you deem interesting, then.
That would at least be better than publicly self-aggrandizing and condescending those who are employing you. 
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Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: If you find the job soooo boring, I think it's time for you to find another job that you deem interesting, then.
He started about a week ago.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: but I don't quite get the point of this post.
I flagged it as rant, which gives some leeway in the "pointless, nothing to understand" category.
Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: Why should insurance business be any different?
Because technically, it's so mind-numbing simple. Building, address, material, square footage, age, occupancy type, yada yada, fire off some rules and you get a number. It's not like there's complicated hardware that has to be dealt with and that can fail, or task management, or complex queries, or data collisions if more than one person is editing a policy, or performance bottlenecks, it's just data that gets translated/reduced into other data.
Yes, granted, that's pretty much what all software does, it's just there is so little to go wrong.
Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: I think it's time for you to find another job that you deem interesting, then.
I've done a few of those, I was hoping this one had some interesting aspects to it. So far, connecting to a web service that doesn't seem to actually support WCF and helping to automate a task because the company deems certain developers too stupid to use TFS are the most "interesting."
Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: That would at least be better than publicly self-aggrandizing and condescending those who are employing you
Quite so. I didn't intend to be self-aggrandizing, I just wanted to rant. I didn't intend to be condescending of my employer, though I can see how it comes off that way.
On the other hand, the responses have been quite entertaining, interesting, and enjoyable to read, which was basically the point of the rant -- elicit some humor, wisdom, and camaraderie. Granted, at the expense of ranting about a particular industry / job.
Marc
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I used to work for insurance company, then moved away and now I am back in to same domain. From my observation, most of the time we need to work on some old technology. Fight hard to convince business to move to something newer (which rarely happens as IT is not primary line of business).
Another observation I have made is that most of the applications are really straightforward (exception: premium calculation with dynamic pricing). However, there are so many applications linked with each other that major part of work is to make sure your system does not harm someone else's.
Note: Programmers in insurance world are nasty. Just like insurance companies themselves.
As far as bugs are concerned, there are bugs in all professional level code.
On the bright side, you will rarely run out of business.
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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Insurance companies are very loath to change things they have been using for years unless there is an overwhelming justification. This is exactly where my current project sits. We are trying to pursuade a number of insurance companies to use our software but they cannot justify the cost of integrating it into their old, old systems.
In a few years they will be trying to update their old, old systems just as a large number of financial institutions are trying to move from mainframes to more compact servers right now.
In the words of the old Flanders & Swann song, "It all makes work for the working man to do".
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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My first programming job at 19... Insurance Rating Systems.
Ahhh...
And just as I was getting "cocky" I was informed that the last programmer had made and published an error, which caused the company to pay a $10,000 fine, and company policy is that flows to the programmer.
Over the coming months, I developed a wonderful set of back-testing to compare the results of ANY changes to what they were producing so they could be "signed off by management".
The UPSIDE was that as a young programmer, I learned that QUALITY not SPEED was singularly important.
I also learned to NEVER trust a salesperson, ESPECIALLY when he is selling you on the benefits of joining his company! LOL
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Consoles never were open platforms, but besides that it's not a big deal. Get yourself a compiler/assembler/whatever and adequate documentation for the system of your choice, set up a source code editor and a project + makefile and an emulator. Then you are ready to go.
There are groups for all kinds of older systems in the internet and most of them have some development tools. Retro programming can be an inexpensive hobby.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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V. wrote: I still have a (somewhat) working Sega 16 bit console at home!
So you can play the amazing Wonder Boy 3!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I've been using paint.net (pretty damned good, for the price) to clear blank space out of screenshots, to make them more manageable, but I was getting annoyed at having to mouse-click buttons to switch between the select tool and the move-selection tool, so I decided to look for keyboard shortcuts.
They'd nefariously hidden them in tool-tips on the buttons (the first and last place I looked), so I spent a somewhat worrisome hour typing nothing but S & M, and hoping that this machine isn't sending a keylog to ms, for them to use in directing advertising at me (it's weven, but you never know what little extras they include in what they define as security updates).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: for them to use in directing advertising at me
Advertising is too unpersonal, but we probably could arrange something for you 
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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We'll have a whip round and see if we can slap something together for you?
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Not for me. If I ever had wanted to, I could have had that many years ago. Who knows where she is now.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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CDP1802 wrote: Who knows where she is now.
Bahrain, according to Sky news.
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Their problem. When I met her, she complained that her father had refused to teach her how to shoot with a H&K G3 battle rifle.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Somehow this is reminding me to John Simmons 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Jane Simmons, in this case.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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I didn't want to use another name... I do know he doesn't get mad on such a comment as mine... but choosing a relative's name by mistake... no thanks, that's a risk I prefer to avoid 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Too late. We are in trouble.[^] Just look at the fourth in the list.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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