Insurance technology company SSP is under fire after a power failure in the UK caused system outages that have affected brokers and underwriters in markets as far away as New Zealand.

A blackout at SSP’s data centre in the UK Midlands late last month triggered the problems, with service yet to be fully restored for customers, including users of the NZ Pure Broking system in New Zealand.

More than 40% of UK brokers are understood to have been affected by the failure of the system, which has frozen access to its cloud-based transaction platform. SSP says it has “no clear idea” when brokers will be able to resume using the service.

“It has been really disruptive,” New Zealand broker Andrew McFetridge, the MD of Rosser Underwriting, told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“For a company [of SSP’s] size, it is just not good enough, really.”

Mr McFetridge says it is hoped the system will be working again this week, but it will take the company some time to catch up with a backlog of work.

SSP New Zealand Manager Samuel Finkle says the company is restoring services and performing tests to enable some NZ Pure Broking customers online today.

“We are working hard to get all our customers back up and running as soon as possible, with others being prepared for implementation tomorrow,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“We know that for those still waiting the situation remains frustrating. I’d like to assure you we are doing our utmost to restore all services as quickly as we can.”

IAG says a small number of intermediaries it works with through its NZI brand have experienced issues. “In terms of the impact on us, we’ve been working with the intermediaries affected – looking to support them with ‘workaround’ solutions,” a spokesman said.

The affected system operates through the cloud, and SSP has been criticised for not ensuring adequate back-up in case of problems.

Ebix Australia MD Leon d’Apice says his company’s CBS, WinBEAT and eGlobal broking systems are not cloud solutions, and would not have the same problem.

The new Ebix Evolution broking system and the Sunrise Exchange system operate through the cloud, but Mr d’Apice says they are provided via data centres “that meet the highest standards and have full disaster-recovery back-up”.

“You basically have to make sure you take every precaution you can to… have a robust and reliable environment,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.