Guidewire Congratulates 2015 Innovation Award Winners - AAMI, Promutuel Insurance, Texas Mutual, and Wawanesa

Connections Conference – Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), a provider of software products to Property/Casualty insurers, congratulates the winners of its 2015 Innovation Awards: AAMI (part of the Suncorp Group), Promutuel Insurance with V-NEO Inc., Texas Mutual Insurance Company, and The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company. This year’s awards honor customers that are successfully adapting to market changes and evolving customer needs through innovation with Guidewire software or are leveraging the Guidewire platform in unique ways.

All Guidewire customers, whether in the process of implementing or extending their production-proven capabilities, were eligible for consideration. The awards were organized into four categories: Business Transformation, Change Management Innovation, Process Innovation, and Service Innovation.

Winners were announced during Guidewire’s eleventh annual user conference – Connections 2015. The recognized projects demonstrate the Guidewire platform at work helping these insurers transform their business and achieve real benefits.

The 2015 winners are:

AAMI (Service Innovation) – Development of a new Zero-Touch online claim lodgment process, driven by Guidewire ClaimCenter®, that allows customers to complete the fulfillment of their motor claim immediately after the submission, all in a single, seamless flow online.

The enablement of Zero-Touch process as a part of AAMI Claim Online application, has transformed the way AAMI has been utilizing its customer self-service channel. It not only automates the claim lodgement process, but also gives customers complete peace of mind, keeping them aware of claim progress and allowing them to be entirely self-sufficient online. This service innovation helps the company maintain its strong customer focus and further contributes to the operational efficiency and the growth of a corporate culture of innovation. Giving customers the ability to lodge a claim and complete the fulfillment online, also provides a critical relief of operational pressure during major weather events, when thousands of people are trying to lodge a claim simultaneously. Suncorp Group has been an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2007.

For additional information on AAMI, visit www.aami.com.au.

Promutuel Insurance with V-NEO (Change Management Innovation) – Through an innovative eLearning based approach, Promutuel Insurance and V-NEO created a new way to provide remote training and to communicate new standards to all of its users, not only for underwriters and affiliated agents, but also to every actual and future user of Promutuel Insurance’s systems and processes.

Promutuel Insurance was faced with the challenge of training 450 employees after updating its operations and business processes across 23 independent mutual associations with more than 100 points of sales distributed across the province of Quebec, Canada. In an effort to reduce costs, improve the learning curve, and at the same time standardize underwriting in commercial and farm lines of business, Promutuel Insurance, along with its implementation partner V-NEO, created a new change management strategy and built a global e-learning foundation, CAMPUS. The new 3-phased training approach, which consists of a gaming concept, e-learning modules, and online exercises, has enabled Promutuel Insurance to:

• Reduce staff training costs;
• Reduce the learning curve and establish training best practices for new employees; and
• Maximize the usage of an online training platform among all internal users.

Promutuel Insurance has been an in-production PolicyCenter customer since 2015 and an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2012.

For additional information on Promutuel Insurance, visit www.promutuelassurance.ca.

For additional information on V-NEO, visit http://v-neo.com/en/.

Texas Mutual Insurance Company (Process Innovation) – Developed automation inside ClaimCenter to replace an error prone and manual process for generating Plain Language Notice (PLN) letters. The new process improved the accuracy of information and decreased the risk of regulatory non-compliance.

Prior to the PLN automation, the PLN process was manual and existed outside of ClaimCenter, thus providing significant opportunity for error and creating a major compliance risk for the company. The end user was responsible for choosing the correct PLN form, populating it with the appropriate data, and generating the resulting letter for image, print, and mailing.

The new PLN process now automates the selection of the PLN letter type and the population of the PLN data and has helped Texas Mutual realize many benefits including ease of use, reduction of errors, and consistency with the generation of its PLN letters. Texas Mutual has been an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2014.

For additional information on Texas Mutual, visit www.texasmutual.com.

The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company (Business Transformation) – Transformed an entire region's labor-intensive, manual processes for all lines of business and billing functions, into a streamlined, efficient branch that experienced a 62 percent growth in sales within 30 days of going live with Guidewire InsuranceSuite™.

Wawanesa’s business transformation initiative included the implementation of PolicyCenter and BillingCenter, a ClaimCenter upgrade, replacement of more than 35 integrations, a new document solution, policy and billing data migration, consolidation of more than 1,000 documents down to 280, and the transformation of the majority of the business processes for all of its personal lines business at its U.S. operations in California and Oregon. The project helped Wawanesa transition from leveraging a very labor-intensive, manual process to using a streamlined, automated, and customer focused workflow that dramatically changed the way the company does business.

Prior to this project, an end to end sales process for a property policy could take up to 19 days and more than 13 departments needed to be involved before a policy could be completely entered into Wawanesa’s systems. Now, this same process, takes under an hour from beginning to end including payment and emailing all relevant documents to the customer. Wawanesa has been an in-production PolicyCenter and BillingCenter customer since 2015, and an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2011.

For additional information on Wawanesa, visit www.wawanesa.com.

“Congratulations to our 2015 Innovation Award winners,” said Marcus Ryu, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. “We are continually inspired by the ways in which our customers use the Guidewire platform to better serve their customers and successfully adapt to the trends impacting the industry.”

About Guidewire

Guidewire delivers the software that Property/Casualty (P/C) insurers need to adapt and succeed in a time of rapid industry change. We combine three elements – core processing, data and analytics, and digital engagement – into a technology platform that enhances insurers’ ability to engage and empower their customers and employees. More than 200 P/C insurers around the world have selected Guidewire. For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com. Follow us on twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

NOTE: Guidewire, Guidewire Software, Guidewire ClaimCenter, Guidewire PolicyCenter, and Guidewire BillingCenter are registered trademarks of Guidewire Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

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