Generali: Insurance BPO Services

The industrialized processing model has helped it to advance on the road toward high performance, reducing administrative costs by 50 percent and improved customer service markedly.

Client Background
Generali is an international life insurance and employee benefits group that offers the full spectrum of insurance and investment products to individuals and corporations. Represented by more than 331 companies in some 40 geographical markets, it has assets worth more than €398 billion under management (2007) and was ranked the No. 4 insurer by Fortune Global 500 in 2008. In line with its commitment to provide shareholders with sustained high growth (revenue rose by 40 percent in 2004 with growth that was higher than the market average since then), Generali purchased two life insurance companies: Le Continent and Zurich France.

While acquisition is a favored means of achieving rapid growth, it is not without its challenges. Generali recognized it needed to integrate the two new closed blocks of business as quickly and smoothly as possible. More than that, it had to do it without undertaking complex system or process reengineering, or investing heavily in new technology. All the while, it had to maintain a consistent level of customer service to allay concerns about the impact of the acquisitions. And because Generali pursues growth through organic expansion as well as acquisition, the integration had to be achieved without distracting key personnel from their first priority: new product development to exceed market growth.

Accenture has an impressive track record of providing insurance BPO services to French, European and global carriers—it manages more than 2 million life policies alone. Its Insurance Data Migration Factory is a tried and tested tool for migrating large databases from clients' legacy systems to Accenture's one-to-many systems. And its life insurance processing platform, which is relied on by a number of leading carriers, has proved its ability to deliver high-quality back-office administration at a significantly lower cost than clients can achieve on their own.

The integration of Generali's two new blocks of business entailed the transfer to Accenture of some 150,000 policies. The Insurance Data Migration Factory was used to ensure that all records were rapidly and accurately converted and moved onto a shared processing platform. Policy administration for closed books was transferred to Accenture, which involved the standardization and automation of processes. The responsibility for customer care was taken over by Accenture's call center.

The project has been a notable success. Data migration was achieved quickly and Generali's policy processing smoothly transferred to Accenture. The industrialized processing model, with its economies of scale and best-practice components, generated immediate cost savings and quality gains.

Administration costs were reduced by more than 50 percent while customer satisfaction was improved and processing backlogs reduced: Within three months, the stock of requests and complaints was reduced by two-thirds. All of this was achieved without major capital expenditure, and without Generali having to divert resources and energy from new product development to overseeing the integration project.

By helping Generali successfully industrialize its processes, Accenture has added impetus to its journey to high performance.