Hertz Recognized at the Vanguards in Insurance Practices ('VIP') Awards for Standards and Technology
Farmington, US and Whiteley, UK - Innovation Group, a global provider of enterprise software and business process outsourcing solutions to the property and casualty insurance industry, is pleased to congratulate Hertz Europe and their claims management division, HCM, for their recognition by Insurance Networking News (INN) and Celent as the third place winner of the 2010 VIP Standards and Technology Best Practice Award out of over 500 submissions. This recognition is based in part on a submission of a case study submitted by Innovation Group, who were selected and ranked by the insurance industry during phase one of the VIP awards based on over 2000 submissions.
This is the second industry recognition in 2010 for Hertz's organizational transformation of their multi-country claims management business model, enabled by Innovation Group's Innovation Claims and Analytics property and casualty insurance specific business solutions.
Hertz, the world's largest general use car rental brand, currently handles around 175,000 motor incidents a year in Europe. To drive productivity, and to respond to an increasing demand and product and customer diversity, Hertz chose to implement Innovation Claims across its claim operations in Europe in 9 countries to provide a web-based, event-driven claims environment that supports the entire claims lifecycle. Hertz's implementation enables the management of the existing motor, property and liability claims in Europe and will support the extension of service delivery to additional countries, new products and customer segments, meet rapid volume growth and provide opportunity to extend their external TPA business portfolio.
Implementation of Innovation Claims has allowed Hertz to streamline and automate business processes, migration of generic business processes to a Shared Service environment, create interfaces with processdependent systems, integrate to multiple industry standards and manage information via the Internet. This has reduced operating costs, reduced claims costs, improved governance and quality and has ultimately improved competitive positioning and value to key stakeholders. The implementation has provided Hertz operational efficiencies, competitive differentiation in business capabilities and pricing and a platform for strategic market growth. Through strong and courageous leadership, highly effective project management, and emphasis on managing the cultural impact of transformation, the implementation, thus far, has driven productivity improvement of 27 percent and claims cost reduction of 8 percent.
'I am proud to be recognized for this award on behalf of my team who have worked tirelessly to deliver our 'best in class' future state and drive through the financial advantages required of a transformation of this scale,' said Patrick Smith, Director of Risk and European Claims Management for Hertz. 'Our success is evidence of a strong partnership with Innovation Group and the innovative culture and support of Hertz. As the only core and claim system winner in the top three, it further highlights the impact of how we aligned our strategic objectives with results, creating excellence in claims management. To have achieved all of this during the economic downturn heightens our pride and satisfaction.'
'Hertz demonstrates how the right vision, technology, business practices and business partner can provide transformative and operational value,' said Pat Speer, editor-in-chief for INN and co-sponsor of the awards.
'Hertz was selected by INN's industry expert judges because of their demonstrated business results using Innovation Claims that supported an array of industry standards in a cohesive and consistent way. Their initiative highlights the strategic and operational impact of business transformation using modern technology and a partner with the ideas, energy and change necessary to deliver exceptional results, measured operational and strategic value and responsiveness to market changes.'

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