1. RSA – Accenture Insurance Solution
Client Profile
RSA is a leading multinational general insurance group. The company has operations in 28 countries and provides its products and services to more than 20 million customers in over 130 countries. For 2007, the Group reported net written premiums of UK £5.8 billion.
Business Challenge
In early 2003, a new Group CEO, was appointed by the Board with a goal, to make RSA, a stronger, higher performing business, one that delivered to shareholders and one that customers and employees could again be proud. Following a comprehensive strategic review, a demanding set of objectives was drawn up aimed at turning the business around. These included strengthening the Group’s capital position, building a new management team, embedding a performance culture, and transforming the operational performance of its ongoing business.
The operational transformation had two elements. The first was to restructure and de-risk the ongoing portfolio by focusing on general insurance and by successfully exiting life and underperforming businesses. The second was a demanding operational improvement programme. Two key targets were publicly announced: to cut the expenses of the Group’s ongoing businesses by UK £270 million and to achieve a combined operating ratio of better than 100 percent on average across the insurance cycle for the Group’s ongoing business (combined operating ratio is a measure of industry profitability).
A key component of the operational improvement programme was a significant investment in the key segments in which RSA operate as well as enhancing the Underwriting that underpinned pricing. Through multiple mergers and acquisitions the business had acquired several systems and a variety of manual processes. Many of the policies details were stored on paper files and underwriting was often performed manually.

2. How Accenture Helped
Accenture was appointed to work with RSA as the strategic partner to implement the transformation. This would exploit Accenture’s industry insights, transformation expertise, software assets and outsourcing capabilities. The two companies structured a contract with a risk and reward payment arrangement based on the delivery of the programme benefits, within budget and on schedule. Both organizations were aligned to gain by delivering against the five year plan to transform the insurer.
The comprehensive programme included:
Implementing Accenture Insurance Solution (AIS) across the majority of RSA’s Corporate and Small Business segments as well as its Broker & Affinity Personal Motor books. AIS supports the full lifecycle from Quote & Buy, to Servicing, Single View of Customer, Billing, Agency and Agent Accounts, Risk Aggregation. It is integrated with Accenture’s Claim Components to give full cycle claims support
22 strategic products have been developed to take forward new business for the equivalent of more than 80 legacy products. The legacy book of over 500,000 policies is being migrated onto the new systems
New risk appetite,supported by the automated underwriting facility within AIS, to select the best risks and to price them appropriately
Commonality of operational processes that are consistent across products enabling cross- skilling retrained underwriters and clerical staff. Operational efficiency driven by automated processes such as scanning, indexing, workflow, centralised print
Automated controls and automated underwriting licences
Call centre capability for broker and direct to affinity customer channels and EDI capability for Broker
A new data warehouse to support MI for operations, and as a granular source of data for pricing decisions and portfolio analysis
An integrated Product factory to give the business greater control over their products and their rating flows.
RSA and Accenture staff have worked side by side in integrated teams to deliver the Sales & Servicing transformation. Accenture assembled a strong global team with extensive experience in large-scale program delivery and system integration

3. High Performance Delivered
AIS implementation has supported RSA in driving forward product and process rationalisation. Many manual processes have been eliminated staff are using the AIS system to support their work. It gives RSA the system support to reduce underwriting leakage through optimised risk appetite, underwriting excellence and controls. Migration of the legacy book is underway.
RSA is meeting its promise to the analysts of being below 100% Combined Ratio for the cycle.
Further long-term success for RSA will depend on consistent delivery against strategic objectives. For instance, RSA is assessing extending the benefits of AIS to further books of business. For RSA and Accenture the partnership is about more than reducing costs - it is about positioning RSA for continued, sustained performance.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 170,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.7 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, Its home page is