Wesfarmers Insurance and Subsidiary Lumley General Insurance New Zealand Deploy Guidewire for Claims

Wesfarmers Insurance, its underwriting subsidiary Lumley General Insurance (N.Z.) Limited (Lumley NZ), and Guidewire Software®, a leading provider of flexible core systems to general insurers, today announced that Lumley NZ has successfully deployed Guidewire ClaimCenter® as the first step in its core systems modernisation projec

Lumley NZ has deployed ClaimCenter for all lines of business. ClaimCenter was rolled out to the initial lines of business in March 2009. Since then, the company has been averaging minor enhancement releases every 4 - 6 weeks, bringing new product functionality online for the Lumley claims team with zero production outages along the way.

Initial ClaimCenter benefits include:

• Claim resolution times have been reduced by 50%

• Improved processing efficiency reducing open claims by 40%

• External partners have noticed service improvements

• Single system entry (of structured data) to handle each and every type of claim, (versus the 3-6 systems per claim needed previously)

• 100% system up-time

• Early identification and detection of fraud or potential fraud; and

• Enhanced customer responsiveness, from “no idea” to “let me look at your claim summary – it’s all here online”.

“With ClaimCenter we are seeing significant improvements in our business, such as a 50% reduction in our average claims resolution times,” said Toni Ferrier, general manager, Lumley Business Solutions, Lumley NZ. “We have been able to free up our claims handlers to pro-actively manage the claims process, providing better service to our customers and business partners. Our claims handlers are thoroughly enjoying using ClaimCenter.”

“The successful implementation of the ClaimCenter project and our use of agile methodology have empowered our IT team to be much more responsive in making system changes – what used to take weeks with the old systems, now takes hours,” said Brian Fair, chief information officer, Wesfarmers Insurance. “The IT team are excited about the contributions they are making to help our business better serve its customers, partners and brokers.”

“We congratulate Lumley NZ on the resounding success of their ClaimCenter implementation,” said Ian Tavener, vice president, Asia Pacific Operations, Guidewire Software. “The Lumley claims handlers have been outfitted with state-of-the-art technology to aid them in doing their jobs. We expect ClaimCenter will provide the company with a good deal of operational flexibility for many years to come.”