Norwich Union Extends Processing to Brokers, Call Operations and Banks

After a series of high-profile mergers, Norwich Union needed to consolidate large books of business on an administration system capable of processing 5 million policies. Rather than cobble together multiple legacy systems, Norwich Union talked to CSC about co-developing a Web browser-based administration system. Collaborating with Norwich Union and three other carriers in the United States, CSC invested three years and $28 million in CSC’s Exceed, an integrated set of software components designed to extend, enhance and evolve insurers’ legacy systems.

Extending Web Services to 2,000 Brokers

Exceed’s advanced architecture allows companies to rapidly introduce business services over the Web. One of Norwich Union’s first projects was to extend Exceed’s underwriting functions to the company’s brokers through a secure company Web site. More than 2,000 leading insurance brokers across the UK are regularly using Norwich Union’s e-Broking site to submit new business and endorsements for household and motor insurance over the Internet.

“Exceed has enabled Norwich Union to extend vital services to our brokers and corporate partners through our e-Broking and e-Services Web sites,” said Patrick Snowball, group executive, general insurance, Norwich Union. “By creating self-service applications on the Internet, we are reducing time spent on in-house processing, which is helping to lower our operational costs as well as providing our broker community with information they need, when they need it. Exceed is helping us deliver against our goals to provide exemplary service levels to our customers and partners.”

By facilitating integration with the company’s e-Services Web site, Exceed is helping Norwich Union react quickly to new opportunities with corporate partners, such as banks, building societies and retailers.

Support for 2,000 Claims Staff

Norwich Union has transitioned about 2,000 claims personnel to Exceed Claims, which integrates with CSC’s Colossus software, used by Norwich Union for evaluating bodily injuries. The company rolled out Exceed Claims to nearly 500 employees in India as the first step in introducing the new system to the UK
claims staff.

“Over the past two years we’ve been growing our company quite rapidly, we’ve been expanding particularly in our business processing area in India,” said Alex Robinson, IT director, Norwich Union. “And we’ve used Exceed to deliver our business processes into that environment, as well as to our large UK offices. It has really helped us shorten the training cycle, and we’ve taken the work experience that we’ve gained offshore back onshore.”

Browser-based deployment also has enabled a significant reduction in software maintenance costs. Supporting more than 3,000 underwriting and claims professionals, Norwich Union’s IT staff routinely faced significant challenges in distributing software updates. Add to that thousands of external users, and Web browser deployment became very attractive.

A Collaborative Effort

In developing Exceed, CSC held an initial forum on the architectural strategy with more than a dozen insurance companies and received continual feedback from clients at regular meetings. Norwich Union also participates in CSC’s Innovation Community program, allowing users to incorporate their insurance functions into Exceed’s base system.

Norwich Union serves on the Exceed Advisory Council, which works with CSC to map out the future direction for product development, and takes advantage of CSC’s full range of user
community activities.

“All of the meetings that take place — the advisory council, the implementers’ group, users’ groups, and the executive forums — give us a very strong sense of having a voice that gets listened to as a customer,” Robinson said.