Logica the IT and business services company, says it has extended its IT services contract for applications development and management with insurance standards organisation and software provider Polaris U.K. Ltd. The contract, which has been extended for ten years, builds on Logica’s 12 year relationship with Polaris and the associated insurance market.
As part of the agreement, Logica will continue to enhance and support ProductWriter (software which captures the actuarial and underwriting aspects of insurance companies products) and the Run Time Environment or RTE (which allows users to obtain terms and conditions from insurers' products.) The RTE software is used at over 3,000 sites throughout the UK and Ireland. The selling and servicing of general insurance business is dependent on the uninterrupted operation of this mission critical software.
Over the 12 years Logica has worked with Polaris, the service team has developed an unmatched level of expertise around insurance product creation. ProductWriter and the RTE are used by a number of UK and Irish insurers for both personal and commercial general insurance. ProductWriter allows business users to create flexible insurance products quickly and efficiently with minimal IT support, improving speed to market and reducing costs. The RTE can process several million quotes daily from a single server, supporting the high volume quotation requirements associated with the growth of aggregator sites.
Logica will provide strategic development and support to Polaris to ensure that the present and future needs of its customers are met by enhancing functionality to improve efficiency. Logica will also develop skeleton schemes to be used by insurers when developing new products and offer ongoing thought leadership and consultancy. In partnership with Polaris, Logica is signing a distribution agreement for the European market to take the benefits of ProductWriter to overseas insurers.
A deciding factor in securing the new ten year agreement was the range of innovation and business benefits delivered throughout the previous contract. For example, Logica has overseen the successful transition of areas of testing and development to an offshore blended delivery model which has maintained quality while delivering savings of over 40% to Polaris. Furthermore, Logica worked with Polaris to identify the benefits and market opportunity for a new higher performance version of the software known as the WSRTE (Web Services Run Time Environment), which offers a high performance and easy integration option for Polaris clients.
Martin McLachlan, Managing Director, Polaris, highlighted the strength of the relationship between the two companies: "The Polaris board was extremely impressed by the clarity and depth of knowledge displayed. We consider the service team at Logica to be a vital extension of the Polaris team which has made ProductWriter so successful. We look forward to working with Logica for another decade."
