Insurance

If you’re in insurance, you’ve probably heard of Polaris and its ProductWriter software. This captures the actuarial and underwriting aspects of insurance company products, allowing you to develop them quickly and apply ratings. It’s such a good system that more than 80 per cent of the UK’s general insurers are licensees.

A Polaris run time environment (RTE) allows users to see the terms and conditions of insurers’ products and is used at more than 3,000 locations across the UK and Ireland.

What you might not know is that every time you use Polaris ProductWriter or RTE, you’re using systems developed and maintained by us. Insurance companies also use our Logica All Payments Solution to manage their payment processing, disbursements and receivables.

But there’s more going on behind the scenes, where we’re working with insurance and financial services companies across the UK to develop their responses to a fast-changing landscape.

There are new regulatory pressures from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the EU’s Solvency II, while the International Association of Insurance Supervisors is calling for change. Then there’s the need for improved audit trails and accounting procedures while margins remain tight.

For some, the answer is consolidation, with mergers and acquisitions that create the scale that allows them to compete on a European or global level. That means you need systems and process integration so that you can cut costs and get to market faster. Web-based systems allow customers and their agents to carry out self-service, stripping out a further layer of cost. We’ve not only developed those technologies but also know the business issues involved, so we’re a good place to look for help.

Something similar is facing property and casualty operators, who need speed to market and a continual stream of new products. They have a chance to attract customers directly, rather than through aggregators. Again, we have both business and technology sewn up.

The life and wealth sector is also facing a transformation. Platform technologies, the FSA’s Retail Distribution Implementation Programme and Solvency II are creating fundamental changes. Organisations that place customers at the heart of their business from start to finish are best placed to benefit from the transformations that will take place in the near future. We know how this works – and how you can benefit.