At Complitech 2005, the major exhibition and conference on compliance matters at the ExCel Centre in Canary Wharf, Phoenix announced the rolling out into live production of the second generation Claims Management system in Ecclesiastical Insurance, the Gloucester based insurance group.

With the enigmatic name of CHIPS2, standing for Claims Handling Image Processing System phase 2, this system is designed to improve productivity and boost efficiency in an environment of increased regulation from the Financial Services Authority and other regulators.

Ecclesiastical have long been proponents of the use of technology to improve operational efficiency in processing claims. The original CHIPS system dates from the mid 90s and enabled the company to handle the significant increase in business year on year as they successfully diversified into new markets.

Commenting on the new solution from Phoenix, Steve Deas, Systems and Compliance Manger, commented: “A major added bonus of the new system, quite apart from boosting the productivity of our claims handlers, is our ability to measure and monitor workflow through a busy Claims Department, ensuring we meet our own and FSA response time requirements. When the time from settlement to payment was defined recently, it didn’t have the dramatic repercussions on us that it once would. We simply modified our payment process and set the service level to meet the new target.”

Brenda Reilly, Sales and Marketing Director at Phoenix said: “We are delighted to have worked with Steve and his team. There were many innovative features in the project such as a new Claims Notification Component using business rules, automatic linking to outside data sources on weather and claims history, and enhanced functionality for mobile agents. The new system is up and running successfully and future projects are already being planned”.

Founded in 1887 as an insurer of churches, Ecclesiastical Insurance Group has grown to become one of the largest British owned financial services companies. Based in Gloucester, with offices in several locations throughout Britain and overseas, Ecclesiastical offers a broad range of personal and commercial financial services.

Phoenix Technology Group (Phoenix) is a leading provider of business solutions to the financial sector in the UK and Ireland. Set up in 1997 to address a need for specialist industry solutions, Phoenix has delivered many successful projects for a number of high profile customers in the Insurance and Banking Sectors.