Innovation Group Adds Support for Microsoft SQL Server to Innovation Insurer Suite

FARMINGTON, CT--(Marketwired - Jul 17, 2013) - The Innovation Group plc (Innovation Group), today announced support of Microsoft SQL Server has been validated with performance and efficiency testing in Microsoft's Redmond labs and has been added to the company's award-winning Innovation Insurer Suite. 

"Over the past decade, Microsoft SQL Server has increasingly become a platform of choice for P&C insurers of all sizes," said Matthew Josefowicz, managing director at Novarica. "Achieving this certification is an important step for Innovation Insurer."

Innovation Insurer's modern technology platform and advanced functionality has been repeatedly recognized by insurance industry customers as well as analysts, recently winning XCelent awards for Technology, Functionality, and Customer Satisfaction, Celent Model Insurer awards, VIP awards from Insurance Networking News and Celent, RAVE awards from Tech Decisions and Novarica, and positive ratings in several Novarica ACE Rankings. This validation further solidifies Innovation Insurer as a leading future-ready software platform to enable business change, efficiencies, growth and performance for property and casualty (P&C) carriers with any line of business and of any size.

"The impact of Innovation Insurer supporting one of the leading database technologies is significant for the global insurance market," said Andy Roberts, Global CEO, Innovation Group. "Through Innovation Insurer, Innovation Group is providing widespread access to market-leading core insurance software that is scalable and performance tested to support a significantly lower total cost of ownership. Innovation Insurer truly delivers modern, flexible solutions which can be easily implemented and upgraded as part of a future-ready business platform."

During the validation of Innovation Insurer, a series of efficiency tests were conducted at the Microsoft Redmond, Washington lab in May of this year. The tests simulated business transaction volumes for all tiers of U.S. property and casualty (P&C) insurers, producing excellent results. The tests concluded Innovation Insurer can handle loads comparable to those expected of a Tier-1 Insurer on a modest infrastructure, thereby exceeding expectations. The overall performance of the Innovation Insurer Suite on SQL Server 2012 was comparable to previous tests running on DB2 at the IBM Innovation Centre (IIC) Hursley, UK.

"We have seen a lot of interest from carriers in modernizing to core systems running on Microsoft's server platform, for the cost benefits, agility, and ready access to skill sets to run these systems," said Tony Jacob, managing director, Worldwide Insurance at Microsoft Corporation. "Innovation Group, one of our strategic partners in insurance, has rapidly embraced our technologies for their leading suite of insurance software. Innovation Group now offers policy administration, claims processing, and policy and claims analytics solutions separately or in a suite, all running on and performance tuned for Windows Server and SQL Server. This offers P&C carriers modern, scalable, highly regarded and well-reviewed solutions for critical areas of their businesses, especially for modernization initiatives. Moreover, the suite presents new opportunities for application, vendor and database consolidations leading to IT cost savings."

Innovation Group's commitment to a solution portfolio that delivers distinctive capabilities within a cohesive, comprehensive and configurable solution to enable insurers to unleash new ideas, break legacy paradigms and embrace change is highlighted by the addition of support for Microsoft SQL Server. Innovation Group's award-winning policy, claims and analytics software offers insurers an integrated suite of software with modules that can be implemented individually or as part of a broader migration strategy.

"We are excited to announce the support of Microsoft SQL Server in this release of Innovation Insurer as it responds to the increasing demand by our insurance industry customers and the industry at-large," said Euan King, CEO NA Insurer Software. "Already, four Innovation Group customers are implementing the Microsoft SQL Server version in multiple geographies."

About The Innovation Group plc:
The Innovation Group plc (LSE: TIG.L) is a global provider of business process outsourcing and software solutions to the insurance, fleet, automotive and property industries. Innovation Group provides contact centers, repair networks, process management, supply chain and technology operations and decision support analytics to support accident management, repair and estimation and claims management services. Innovation Group has over 800 global clients including AXA Insurance, RSA, Encompass, Hertz, Main Street America Group, American Modern Insurance Group, LeasePlan, The Ford Motor Company, Aviva, Toyota and Zurich. The Group processes more than 4 million claims per year with 20 per cent direct claims cost saving achieved. Innovation Group's 2,300 people are located in the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain and United States. www.innovation-group.com

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