SBI Insurance Becomes the First Japanese Company to Select Guidewire InsuranceSuite

Guidewire Software Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), a provider of core system software to Property/Casualty (general) insurers, today announced that SBI Insurance is implementing Guidewire InsuranceSuite™ as its new core systems which will support the expansion of new, high-quality services. This marks the first implementation of Guidewire InsuranceSuite by a Japanese Property/Casualty insurer.

SBI Insurance has launched a project to implement new core systems in support of its new insurance service offering, in order to expand its business and further improve its competitiveness. The new systems need to cover not only the complete range of functionality necessary in order to conduct general insurance business, but also need to have the kind of system architecture that would enable high levels of flexibility and scalability, in line with SBI Insurance’s information systems policy of “compact systems” and “compact operations”. After careful comparison and evaluation of several available systems, SBI Insurance selected Guidewire InsuranceSuite systems for rating, underwriting, policy administration, billing and claims management.

SBI Insurance Director Kazunosuke Fujioka explained, “SBI Insurance has maintained the delivery of customer-centric services as its vision since the company was founded. We have endeavored to provide our customers with high quality services that leverage the benefits of web-based services at the lowest insurance rates in the industry. Guidewire Software’s product vision is very close to our own. Guidewire Software® provides highly accomplished solutions and consulting services with the premise that, in the final analysis, we operate the system ourselves. The result is that we will be able to implement a system that meets our demands in terms of superior quality, agility and cost effectiveness.”

Guidewire InsuranceSuite will enable SBI Insurance to:

• Leverage InsuranceSuite’s highly flexible and scalable system architecture;

• Utilize an industry-specialized solution that features enhanced functionality and superior cost-effectiveness; and

• Ensure agility by having the ability to make changes and upgrades to the systems in-house.

“We are very pleased that SBI Insurance has become the first company to implement Guidewire InsuranceSuite in Japan. I believe this results from our being able to provide a next generation core system that addresses SBI Insurance’s desire to deliver the best services to their customers through the proactive implementation of an advanced system,” said Ian Tavener, Vice President, Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters, Guidewire Software. “We are pleased to be able to help SBI Insurance to achieve further business expansion through the realization of an advanced system with high quality and cost effectiveness, through the implementation of Guidewire InsuranceSuite.”

SBI Insurance has started its new system construction project, targeting full system operation in the first half of fiscal 2012.

Guidewire InsuranceSuite™ provides the flexible core systems essential for the mission-critical operations of Property/Casualty insurers competing in today’s market: underwriting and policy administration, claims management, and billing. The suite was designed using a modular approach, enabling insurers to select individual applications -- Guidewire PolicyCenter®, Guidewire ClaimCenter® and Guidewire BillingCenter® -- or a pre-integrated set, driven by their requirements and priorities. The suite provides the flexibility insurers need to deliver insurance the way they want to by rapidly delivering better products and service to their policyholders and agents, while improving underwriting discipline and lowering operational costs. Insurers’ personnel (including underwriters, customer service representatives, adjusters, supervisors, and executives) gain intuitive, productive role-specific user interfaces. Insurer IT organizations gain flexibility in addressing evolving business requirements through consistent tools for configuring and enhancing operational data stores, user interfaces, workflows and business logic across their underwriting and policy administration, claims management, and billing systems.