Liverpool Victoria has added a tele-underwriting deal
worth £26m over 12 years to a long-term £109m business process
outsourcing agreement it signed last year with EDS.
The add-on deal, like the original contract, will run until
2017, and is designed to speed up the friendly society's
underwriting of life protection policies.
The tele-underwriting facility has two parts to it. The first is
an automated underwriting management system to ensure risks are
underwritten consistently, while the second calls on medically
trained staff to evaluate "non-clean" cases to decide whether and
on what terms cover will be offered.
The initial underwriting process links Ingenium, a life
assurance administration platform developed by EDS subsidiary
Solcorp, to Allfinanz's Xpertbridge e-software suite. At the end of
each application cycle it uses another Solcorp product, the
quotation engine Productxpress, to generate an offer quote for new
customers.
The Xpertbridge utility helps call centre staff to ask the right
questions of prospective customers, to generate a comprehensive
picture of the risks being assumed. For less routine applications -
or "non-clean" cases - Liverpool Victoria's tele-underwriting staff
can use the same software to gain a fuller medical picture in an
effort to avoid the need for a detailed medical report.
Kevin Durkan, group director of operations at Liverpool
Victoria, said the system should lead to "substantial operational
efficiencies and improved customer service", but the society would
not be drawn on its likely return on investment.
David Sexton, a client industry executive at EDS, said that part
of the business case for the wider deal, signed in February last
year, was to rationalise legacy platforms at the friendly society -
condensing seven systems into just two.
But Sexton added that this additional deal was "always in the
pipeline" once the original deal was struck, though the timing was
driven by Liverpool Victoria's requirements.
The original deal means EDS has operational responsibility for
Liverpool Victoria's protection business, as well as providing a
life, pensions and retail investment administration service for the
society, using Ingenium for open-book and new business
processing.