Leading US Life
Insurance Provider
Life insurance provider consolidates delivery model on journey to high performance
The client is one of the foremost providers of individual life
insurance in the United States with more than 3 million policyowners and clients.
Business challenge
This major US life insurance company faced a number of
challenges in product sales and delivery. It had multiple
applications that provided illustrations—projections of the cash
value of a risk-based insurance product—information that is
critical to the sales and policy servicing processes. The
increasing cost of maintaining and enhancing multiple
applications limited the company’s ability to add new
functionality or products to its product lines. The insurer
selected Accenture to help it meet these challenges based on
Accenture’s track record and ability to deliver high-risk
strategic initiatives in the insurance arena. Accenture also
enjoys strategic relationships with Microsoft, on whose
products the solution was to be based, and Avanade, who
provided architecture skills and development resources.
for .NET (ACA.NET) to accelerate development of the platform
and professionals in the Accenture Delivery Center in
Bangalore, India, to provide cost-effective solution delivery.
The new illustrations solution was delivered in two releases
over a three-year period. The first release delivered the
technical architecture and consolidated illustrations for the
client’s life insurance business, while the second release
consolidated the remaining products, including disability
insurance and annuities, and new issue illustrations for all
products.
High performance delivered
The insurer expects to save an estimated $20 million over the
next seven years due to a reduction in application
maintenance, regulatory changes and new product
development costs. A consolidated illustrations platform also
reduces the field sales process complexity and provides a
more professional and consistent look and feel to illustrations
for the company’s clients. Through effective use, the sales
force has embraced the new consolidated illustration system
and views the program as highly successful at improving the
sales and policy servicing workflow. The consolidation of the
insurer’s illustrations applications onto a .NET platform has
positioned it for future growth and placed it on the road to high
performance.
Deutsche Telekom
Accenture research into software platform consolidation in the
life insurance industry indicates that consolidation, if properly
leveraged, can provide insurers with real strategic advantages
when they pursue new domestic and international markets,
thus helping them achieve high performance.1
How Accenture helped
Accenture teamed with Microsoft and Avanade to consolidate
the illustrations systems onto the Microsoft .NET platform. The
project team leveraged the Avanade Connected Architectures
©Accenture 2010 All rights reserved.
1
Accenture Life Insurance Platform Consolidation Global Research
Report 2006-07.
Leading US Life
Insurance Provider
Company overview
• One of the foremost providers
of individual life insurance in
the United States.
• More than 3 million policyowners and clients.
Choice of Accenture
• Successful track record and
ability to deliver high-risk
strategic initiatives in the
client’s environment.
• Strategic relationships with
Microsoft and Avanade.
• Global Delivery Network.
Staffing and experience
• Team comprised of 20
Accenture, 8-10 Avanade and
two Microsoft professionals.
• All user interface and
calculations development
work done in the Accenture
Delivery Center in Bangalore,
India.
Engagement scope
• Consolidate multiple, productsilo systems into one sales
solution on a Microsoft.NET
platform.
• Reduce cost of system
maintenance.
• Improve timeliness of new
product delivery.
©Accenture 2010 All rights reserved.
Engagement timeframe
• October 2003 - March 2006
Delivery methods
• Accenture Delivery Methods
Services provided
• Define overall business
architecture.
• Define future state business
processes.
• Define high level and detailed
requirements for the solution.
• Define and complete technical
architecture and design.
• Develop system test strategy.
• Execute systems test.
• Support user acceptance test.
• Support overall deployment.
Technology components
• Microsoft .NET
• Avanade Connected
Architecture for .NET
(ACA.NET)
• [Microsoft Visual] C#
• PL/1
Key success factors
• Synergies from the alliance of
Accenture, Avanade and
Microsoft.
• Accenture’s expertise in
delivering large-scale
programs.
• Accenture’s Global Delivery
Network.
Business challenge
• The client had multiple, product-specific illustration systems for life
products and secondary product lines.
• Both maintenance cost and cost of introducing new products were
growing.
• The field force was demanding technology to produce illustrations in
real-time during sales meetings, instead of returning to the office and
producing hard-copy illustrations that had to be mailed to prospects.
• The client identified a need to crate a single illustration system,
economical to maintain to support field representatives whether
disconnected or connected.
How Accenture helped
• Teamed with Avanade and Microsoft to give client the benefit of
alliance synergies: Accenture was responsible for overall program
management, business architecture, and testing resources; Avanade
was responsible for the architecture and C# development; Microsoft
assisted with the conference room pilot, and technical architecture
design.
• Delivered program in three releases over a three-year period. The
first release delivered the technical architecture and consolidated the
Illustrations for Life, Disability Insurance and Annuities. Release 2
consolidated the remaining products and all new-issue Illustrations.
Release 3 integrated the Illustrations platform with other front-end
distribution systems.
High performance delivered
• The insurer expects to save an estimated $20 million over the next
seven years due to a reduction in application maintenance,
regulatory changes and new product development costs.
• Client eliminated eight applications in favor of one.
• Field agents gained capability to do illustrations in real time.
Efficiency of field agents improved because they could prepare
illustrations faster, reusing information and case data from prior
illustrations, easily share illustrations information across sales teams,
etc.
• Brand consistency improved because the new system presented
information uniformly across products.