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Zurich Insurance becomes 5th insurer to go live on SSP IQH

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SSP today announces that Zurich has become the fifth leading UK insurer to go live with SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub (IQH) to provide insurer hosted pricing for part of its business. 

These capabilities have been developed for Zurich’s Personal Lines intermediated business, integrating SSP IQH with brokers’ software houses systems, and is in the process of being rolled out to Zurich’s broker customers. 

A sophisticated whole of market product rating and quotation solution with the ability to handle large volumes of business, SSP IQH provides Zurich with the market-leading rating, pricing and data enrichment capabilities it needs to become more agile and competitive in the marketplace. 

With a single point of data integration for internal and third-party sources, Zurich can consume information from the ever-growing number of external data sources and providers, and integrate this with its own customer knowledge for greater insight into the risk being insured. 

As application fraud is a growing challenge across the insurance industry, Zurich has also deployed SSP Verify, a powerful pre-inception counter-fraud solution. This enables Zurich to minimise fraud at point of quote, allowing the insurer to price more effectively while reducing premium and claims leakage. 

Adrian Coupland, Customer and Marketing Managing Director at SSP said:
“We’re delighted that Zurich has become the fifth major insurer to adopt SSP IQH. We have worked collaboratively with Zurich to develop a robust shared understanding of the capabilities required to support its vision for market-leading rating, pricing, data enrichment and fraud detection and how these will be delivered through SSP IQH and SSP Verify. 

“As SSP IQH has the ability to handle large volumes of business, it is the ideal pricing and rating solution for the 1.1 million policies and hundreds of millions of quotes that Zurich generates each year.” 

Gareth McChesney, Underwriting Director for Personal Lines at Zurich UK said:
“Our strategy focuses on providing the right general insurance solutions for our individual customers at the right price. To continue doing this, we needed to transform our personal lines business to rate and price more accurately, based on individual risk. 

“The collaboration and delivery focus of both Zurich and SSP continues to enable us to deliver this essential capability to the marketplace.” 

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SSP and L&G joint venture wins digital award

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SSP is delighted that Legal & General has won a Digital and Insurtech Award for SmartQuote, the innovative digital solution powered by SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub (IQH).

Legal & General received the Insurance Technology/Digital Project Team of the Year – Enterprise Award in recognition of how SmartQuote has revolutionised the purchase of home insurance. By utilising the vast quantity of digital data available for an individual risk, SmartQuote generates an informed quote in 90 seconds with minimal customer input.

SSP IQH, a sophisticated whole of market product rating and quotation solution, acts as a single point of integration for all the internal and third-party data sources used. Bringing the relevant risk data together in this way means customers simply need to enter their postcode and the type of cover required to receive a binding quote.

Such simplification and streamlining of the purchasing journey eliminates one of the major bugbears of today’s time-poor insurance customers – the need to answer pages of questions they often don’t have accurate information for. This is particularly pertinent given that mobile is now the interface of choice, and SmartQuote provides a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use solution.

In addition, as the information comes from official sources, rather than customer estimates, the price accurately reflects the real individual risk posed.

Adrian Coupland, Customer and Marketing Managing Director at SSP said:
“I am pleased that the ability of SmartQuote to truly transform the market has been recognised with this award. It provides a hassle-free way for consumers to purchase insurance by using the information that is readily available to meet their demands for a faster journey.”

David Robertson, Director of Digital Transformation at Legal & General said:
“In SmartQuote, we’ve delivered an award-winning, market-leading solution jointly with SSP, and I am very proud of that.

“There is nothing like SmartQuote in the world, it is a completely unique proposition. It’s been enabled not just by the technology that SSP has helped us build and deliver, but also by the relationships we’ve got with the team there.”

SSP IQH

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L&G partners with SSP to transform its customer journey

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Legal & General has partnered with SSP to launch SmartQuote, an innovative new digital solution that meets the needs of today’s insurance customers by making it quicker and simpler to buy home insurance.

While traditional quote forms require consumers to answer numerous questions they often don’t have accurate information for, SmartQuote uses SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub (IQH) to take full advantage of the vast quantity of digital data sources available to streamline and simplify the customer journey.

As a sophisticated whole of market product rating and quotation solution, SSP IQH provides a single point of data integration for the internal and third-party data sources Legal & General requires to generate a binding customer quote, with the customer only needing to input their postcode and type of cover required.

As the information used comes from official sources, rather than customer estimates, the price accurately reflects the real individual risk posed.

Adrian Coupland, Customer and Marketing Managing Director at SSP said:
“The deployment of SmartQuote is a major milestone for SSP and will be truly transformational in the market.

“Time-poor consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated at having to answer pages of questions to get an insurance quote. By utilising the ever-increasing amount of data available about people and risks, SmartQuote produces an informed and precise evaluation quickly with minimum customer effort.

“As the number of data sources continues to grow and grow, all these can be fed into SSP IQH to produce optimum results.”

David Robertson, Director of Digital Transformation at Legal & General said:
“We are looking to significantly grow our GWP in the next year through the implementation of new digital solutions. With SmartQuote providing a hassle-free way to purchase policies, it will make insurance more accessible to consumers, and will form the centrepiece of our targeted growth.

“As SmartQuote also makes it easier for our distribution partners to offer insurance quotes, it will drive opportunities across the direct, broker and affinity markets.”

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Legal & General undertakes digital transformation programme with SSP

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Leading insurer builds digital capabilities to meet the needs of consumers and brokers.

Legal & General is partnering with SSP, a leading global provider of insurance technology, to continue its digital expansion.  The insurer, which has already started upgrading its general insurance policy administration systems, has now launched an enhanced technology platform that will enable much more sophisticated data analysis for ratings and pricing decisions. SSP is supporting delivery of the new technology platform over a series of phases, initially by implementing the SSP Select Insurance administration platform and deploying a new cloud-based SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub to enable underwriting, data enrichment and sophisticated rating and pricing.

The SSP solution enables Legal & General to deliver a ‘whole of market’ digital strategy.  SSP’s Intelligent Quotes Hub will allow Legal & General to track and respond to the behaviour of general insurance customers and prospects in real-time, whether their contact is via Legal & General’s own website and contact centres or via aggregators and intermediaries. In addition to serving the 40% of the UK broker and intermediary market that utilise SSP broker software, Legal & General will be able to use SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub to support its business with other distribution channels and direct consumers.

SSP Select Insurance and Intelligent Quotes Hub provides Legal & General with flexible and agile product definition capabilities, which will enable it to respond to market dynamics and bring new products and schemes to market more rapidly and at lower cost.  Implementation of this new platform is an important step in Legal & General’s “enhance & evolve” strategy for replacement of legacy technology, including Insure/90.  SSP’s purpose-built Select Connect component will play a key role in enabling a phased replacement that minimises risk and cost.

Duncan Finch, Managing Director General Insurance at Legal & General, said:
“Evolving our technology infrastructure is at the heart of our plan to meet the needs of the next generation of consumers.  Born into a world of smart phones and tablets, they will expect to interact quickly, easily and digitally with their broker or insurer.   In addition, having access to enriched data will enable us to better understand and target our customer base for better price optimisation and to maximise sales opportunities in an ever more competitive market.

“SSP’s modular approach is extremely helpful in moving towards this vision.  The potential risks of upgrading are minimised and we won’t have to wait years before seeing the benefits.  Unlocking the value of enhancements more quickly will also build the business case for the next stage of development.”

Stephen Lathrope, Managing Director of SSP’s Insurer Division, said:
“We are delighted to be supporting Legal & General’s digital strategy, and are speaking to several other insurers about ways in which we can help them stay ahead of the rapid evolution of the general insurance marketplace.  The challenge they face is how to meet the increasingly sophisticated expectations of consumers while bringing together the diverse range of internal and external data required for fast and accurate decision making.

“By applying contemporary technology, initially in combination with their existing core system, Legal & General will also be in a stronger position to launch new direct channels to market while still feeding data into their legacy platform and massively reducing costs.”

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Endsleigh commits to SSP’s data enrichment technology in new five-year deal

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The UK’s biggest student insurer, Endsleigh Insurance Services Limited, has announced a new five-year deal with technology solutions provider SSP to revamp its approach to data enrichment.

The deal will see Endsleigh add SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub (IQH) and SSP Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services to its existing software suites, both hosted in SSP’s dedicated datacentre. The new tools will allow Endsleigh to generate more tailored quotes for a greater range of insurers by utilising new data sources.

The transition to IQH from internally developed insurance software marks an important change for Endsleigh as it looks to spend more time with clients.

Steve Pearson, Managing Director, Broker Division:
“Insurer needs have changed and brokers must change with them. Earning access to the best rates means constantly evolving your data enrichment capability.

“Brokers are investing in technology which will keep them ahead of insurer demands and not track behind them. Only by moving away from expensive back offices to fully managed, hosted solutions can brokers thrive against new competitors.”

As part of the deal, Endsleigh will also upgrade software within its financial services business to SSP Adviser, which will be hosted alongside IQH and EDI in SSP’s datacentre. Future upgrades, data protection and disaster recovery will be managed entirely by SSP, helping to reduce both the downtime and regulatory burden for the business.

Elaine Etheridge, Operations Manager, Financial Services, Endsleigh said:
“Using SSP’s technology we can take full advantage of the data we have and use it to enhance our customer interactions. The result is a better, more targeted customer contact and more efficient processes.

“With upgrades and back office management run by SSP, we can focus on delivering the best service possible for our clients.”

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Brokers risk becoming complacent on fraud, SSP reveals

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  • Almost three quarters of brokers say application fraud is not a priority for them.
  • Application fraud /inaccuracies costs the industry over a £1bn per year according to SSP.
  • The most successful brokers are more likely to see tackling fraud as a key driver of growth.

Almost three quarters of brokers have put fraud prevention on the back burner according to insurance technology solutions provider SSP. 74% of brokers, say application fraud is not a priority for their business over the next 12 months, with 65% saying the same about claims fraud.

The data, which comes from a survey of 301 UK brokers, suggests that even in the longer term neither commercial nor personal lines brokers plan to target fraud. 62% of surveyed brokers said that application fraud would not be a priority in the next five years and 60% said the same about claims fraud.

The news is concerning given that fraud is recognised as a huge problem for the insurance industry as a whole. SSP has estimated that fraudulent or inaccurate insurance applications in the motor insurance industry alone are costing insurers over £1bn a year1 in lost premiums, whilst the ABI detected £1.3bn of claims fraud in 20132.

Only the most successful small brokers in the UK3 appear to be bucking the trend. A sizeable proportion of brokers (39%) credit their efforts to get on top of application fraud as a contributing factor to their success. Growing brokers are also more than twice as likely as declining brokers to say that tackling fraud will help to drive their growth over the next five years.

Adrian Coupland, Managing Director, Data and Distribution at SSP, commented:
“Many of the brokers we spoke to have a clear plan for growth, one which focused on providing an excellent service and investing in their insurer relationships. Yet some brokers still seem to accept fraud as a fact of life rather than tackle it, boost business performance and strengthen relationships with insurers.

“As more insurers use technology to improve their ability to detect and track fraud – including pre-inception fraud in the broker channel – brokers cannot afford to ignore the issue. Insurers will look to place business through the channels providing them with the best risk, and using a system like SSP Intelligent Quotes Hub enables the broker to eliminate fraud risk at application stage”.

The news comes as SSP continues the roll out of its Intelligent Quotes Hub, a market leading pricing and risk rating platform which enables insurers to identify fraudulent customer behaviour before a quote is even provided. Sitting within Intelligent Quotes Hub, SSP Verify is SSP’s counter-fraud solution which deals with complexities such as slight changes in names and addresses and different device usage in order to accurately link data to create a holistic ‘single customer view’. It enables users to monitor individual customer behaviour and identify in real-time if the same customer is providing different application data through different channels (e.g. via a broker or aggregator, online, over the phone or directly to the insurer). Users can also use it to prototype multiple anti-fraud strategies simultaneously.

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1For details on how this figure was calculated, see: http://www.ssp-worldwide.com/1-42bn-ssp-uncovers-the-cost-of-lost-premium-fraud-to-the-uk-intermediary-motor-insurance-industry/
2ABI insurance facts 2014: https://www.abi.org.uk/~/media/Files/Documents/Publications/Public/2014/Key%20Facts/ABI%20Key%20Facts%202014.pdf
3Defined as those who have grown in the last 12 months