PolisDirect Case Study

Polis Direct BV, a leading Dutch insurer, began operating in 1995 using the same principle as Direct Line from the United Kingdom. Polis Direct offers its new clients a 10% lower premium than what they are currently paying for car insurance. The reason Polis Direct is able to do this is twofold:

By introducing specific differentiating rating criteria within the system, Polis Direct is able to offer the lower premium only to customers with the least amount of claims, ensuring they only get the most desired customers
By minimizing the users' choices (such as agents) via an automated workflow, Polis Direct implements an efficient process thus eliminating room for errors, ensuring that only customers who fit the exact criteria will be offered the 10% discount. This way, Polis Direct can offer lower premiums, while still maintaining good profits

The Challenge

With the help of Ernst &Young, Polis Direct has developed a five-year plan which identified the need for the following five enablers: internet capabilities, a good workflow system, advanced document management with imaging, a CRM system and reporting tools. A modern, open, system equipped with all these requirements, had to be found. Wolter Bosch, ICT Manager of Polis Direct and the Ernst & Young team conducted a search and discovered IDIT™, through a LogicaCMG contact and an IT directory. According to Bosch, IDIT™ software simply met all the requirements listed in the report and many of the features were already standard out-of-the-box.

The Solution

Polis Direct decided to implement its new car insurance product with IDIT™ software, since this was a new insurance product for Polis Direct, there were no conversion problems either. As part of the implementation project, Polis Direct chose the Israeli voice recording system from NICE, which was integrated into IDIT™, enabling all telephone conversations to be recorded. By doing this, a major part of the primary process was eliminated, significantly reducing costs. Issuing policies became much more efficient, since the registration process, including customer declaration, were dealt with over the telephone and the policy can be sent on directly without waiting for a customer signature. Legally this is acceptable because the client is told beforehand that all the conversations are recorded. IDIT™ software, which is connected to the NICE database, made it easier to find the desired conversation rapidly, based on several search criteria.

The Result

The latest Polis Direct insurance products (car and travel insurance) went live at the call center and over the web (www.polisdirect.nl). An end-to-end legacy conversion was succesfully implemented as part of the project, to ensure full history tracking. Despite the difficulty posed by differences in the data models, the final result was very good. One could not even see if a transaction had been made in IDIT™, or in the former I90 system.

Going into the Future

Bosch applauds IDIT™ software and believes that the company's continual focus on the insurance market is one of its many strong points. Bosch feels IDIT™ should never become a general financial package, as this would increase the time to market, eliminating one of the main strengths of IDIT™ - its short time to market. Additionally, Polis Direct wants to use the intermediary possibilities of the IDIT™ software in the future, for example by selling policies at car dealerships and garages.

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