Helping CommInsure go from Good to Great

Interview with Julie Vincent, Head of Insurance Life Services

See below to find out how FINEOS is being used at CommInsure

FINEOS for New Business, Underwriting, Policy Maintenance and Claims Management

CommInsure is a leader in the Australian insurance industry and part of the Commonwealth Bank Group. It was formed in 2002 as a specialist division to combine the bank’s Australian insurance activities and is currently Australia’s largest life insurer and fifth largest general insurer. CommInsure protects over 4 million people across Australia and manages over AUS$15 billion dollars in funds under administration. 

CommInsure uses the workflow and case management capabilities of the FINEOS Insurance Platform across its entire business to streamline processes and reduce costs. In particular, FINEOS supports the sales and servicing operations at CommInsure ìncluding new business, underwriting, policy maintenance and claims management processes. It integrates in real time with two policy administration systems, Life 400 and Insure 90, and links in with the bank’s centralised document management system.

Working with FINEOS has allowed the CommInsure to simplify and reduce the manual effort required across its processes.  An example of this is in life new business where cycle times have been reduced by 46% for simple applications and 40% for complex applications. 

FINEOS has enabled CommInsure to minimise the number of restrictions on its processes enabling it to deliver real flexibility. The company now has a single view of its customers’ insurance information across all lines of business which has really helped improve the service experience to its customers. Moreover, the intuitive workflow capabilities of FINEOS have enabled CommInsure to reduce the rework in errors across the business. Finally, working with FINEOS has enabled CommInsure to lower its exposure, across all its teams, to operational and insurance risk.

Today CommInsure and FINEOS are working together in a strategic way to look at how CommInsure’s processes will evolve in the future and how the FINEOS product will similarly develop.

A Platform for Business Growth at Friends First

Interview with Paddy Flynn, Chief Information Officer

See below to find out how FINEOS is being used at Friends First

FINEOS Broker and Customer Self-Service Web Portals for Claims, New Business and Policy Servicing.

Friends First was originally a branch office in Ireland of the wider Friends Provident group.  In the 1990s it became part of the pan-European group called Eureko which has companies dotted throughout Europe.  For example, a sister company Achmea in the Netherlands is the largest health insurer in the country and also has a number of other insurance companies there. Achmea has insurance arms in Greece, Eastern Europe, Russia and Poland. In Ireland, Friends First offers life assurance, pensions, investments, savings, and risk related products. 

In 1996 when Friends First decided to implement and develop its own technology platform in Dublin and establish a customer service centre, FINEOS was selected as the core technology capability to support it.   

Initially it was used as a task management and contact management solution.  However, in 2002 following a comprehensive review of the overall business model within Friend First, the company decided to reengineer its business processes and review its technology platform in general. They established a programme called the e-Transformation Programme and as part of that looked at what the next phase for “Service Monitor” (the name given to the FINEOS product internally in Friends First) should be.

That review looked at FINEOS in a more strategic way. A decision was made to integrate FINEOS with the web portal, the back office systems (such as Life400), processing engines, quotation engines, and with a large number of single purpose systems.

From that time, FINEOS has been a mission critical, core support to service improvement and efficiency at Friends First. One of the key achievements has been in the area of Straight Through Processing (STP) for online new business. Broker customers can now transact new business online which triggers a number of processes directly within the Service Monitor platform (FINEOS).

While Paddy Flynn is keen to point out that the programme was always a service led transition and not cost driven, he estimates that during the period 2003 – 2006, Friends First significantly reduced its service cost base, mostly through the non-replacement of people. They also increased their profits and improved overall service levels.

Today FINEOS is one of the core applications that sits within the application architecture at Friends First.  The insurer is currently going through another major technology refresh and will continue to use FINEOS as a core business platform into the future.