Wesfarmers Insurance and Subsidiary Lumley General Insurance New Zealand Select Guidewire for Policy Administration and Billing

Wesfarmers Insurance, its underwriting subsidiary Lumley General Insurance (N.Z.) Limited (Lumley NZ), and Guidewire Software®, a leading provider of flexible core systems to general insurers, today announced that Lumley NZ has selected Guidewire InsuranceSuite™ products: Guidewire PolicyCenter® and Guidewire BillingCenter®.

Lumley NZ is in the midst of transforming its core business systems and processes in an effort to provide a more responsive and higher quality service to customers and partners. The company fully deployed Guidewire ClaimCenter® as the initial step in this process in May 2009. The addition of PolicyCenter and BillingCenter will extend business best practices, workflow automation, efficient data capture and access, and operational flexibility to its policy administration, underwriting and billing operations.

“Guidewire systems are easy to use and easy to support; they enable our staff to focus on the most important task of serving our customers and business partners,” said John Lyon, Lumley chief executive officer. “Based on our positive experience working with Guidewire, we felt they were the right partner to help us bring operational efficiencies and state-of-the-art functionality to our policy administration, underwriting and billing systems.”

“Our IT team has gained a lot of invaluable experience and confidence while implementing ClaimCenter,” said Brian Fair, chief information officer, Wesfarmers Insurance. “We will be able to leverage their expertise in implementing BillingCenter and PolicyCenter.”

“We could not be more pleased that Lumley NZ has selected additional Guidewire applications based on their initial experience with us,” said Marcus Ryu, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. “The Guidewire team is excited about what ClaimCenter has already helped Lumley achieve and we look forward to working with them as they continue their business transformation journey with PolicyCenter and BillingCenter.”

“The transformation of Lumley NZ’s core technology platform will enable us to provide greater innovation in respect of connectivity and solutions for our key partners,” said John Lyon.

“It has been a key business strategy to focus on getting our insurance basics, such as primary systems and process, right. This can only be achieved if functionally rich, fit-for-purpose systems are available. Selecting and partnering with Guidewire through our claims system replacement project which was completed earlier this year, has gone a long way towards delivering on this business goal.”

“We have commenced implementation of PolicyCenter and BillingCenter and expect to begin using the system in the fourth quarter 2010, with full conversion to the new system by end of four quarter 2011.”

“We look forward to working with Guidewire to achieve our business transformation strategy and implementing our new core policy system.”

About Lumley NZ

Lumley is New Zealand’s fourth largest general insurer and offers all major classes of commercial and personal insurance.

They distribute through independent brokers and intermediaries who are serviced by a well-established and respected nationwide branch network which ensures immediate and personal access to local decision-makers.

Lumley Business Solutions (LBS), a consumer insurance specialist, works closely with corporate partners including banks, financial service companies, corporate and community organisations to strengthen their brands and enhance customer service offerings.

For more information, please visit www.lumley.co.nz/.

About Wesfarmers Insurance

Wesfarmers Insurance is owned by Wesfarmers Limited, the largest private sector employer in Australia, employing over 200,000 people. Wesfarmers also has holdings in retail, resources, chemicals and fertilizers, energy and insurance (www.wesfarmers.com.au/).  

Wesfarmers Insurance has a proud history, serving Australians and their insurance needs since 1919. Over the years we\'ve grown into the 5th largest insurer in Australia and 4th largest insurer in NZ. We also have one of the largest insurance broking networks across Australasia.

With headquarters in Sydney, we are represented in 123 locations in Australia, 27 in New Zealand and five in the United Kingdom.

Our insurance underwriting businesses include: Lumley in Australia and NZ and WFI in Australia. Our insurance broking businesses include: OAMPS in Australia and the UK and Crombie Lockwood in NZ. What we share across our businesses is a common desire to attract and develop the best people, consistently exceed client expectations and build strong relationships with our clients and customers. For more information, go to: www.wesfarmersinsurance.com.au.