EIS Group, a global provider of insurance core systems, is pleased to announce that Celent, a leading research and advisory firm focused on insurance technology strategy, presented AMI Insurance a 2015 Model Insurer Asia Award for their legacy and ecosystem environment transformation project during an award ceremony held on March 11, 2015.

The Celent Model Insurer Asia Awards are the company’s premier vehicle for recognizing insurers for implementation and utilization of technology in the Asia-Pacific region. The basis for AMI’s award submission was an enterprise technology modernization effort that included the implementation of EIS Group’s core administration software system—EIS Suite™.

As a division of IAG, New Zealand’s largest fire and general insurance provider, AMI writes business through a network of approximately 70 stores and two call centers nationwide. Prior to the transformation initiative, AMI’s business operations were limited by manual processes and a legacy system that had become expensive to maintain and incapable of supporting current and future business needs, including improved customer service and faster speed to market for new products.

The implementation of the new core systems enables the insurer to standardize processes across the enterprise, automate underwriting, streamline new business processing, reduce operational costs, improve the overall customer experience and modernize communications and self-service capabilities. AMI is working toward a full conversion of all in-force policies, and has thus far converted more than 50 percent of all customers and policies.

“The AMI core systems replacement with EIS Suite is an excellent example of how insurers can reap very broad and significant business benefits and competitive advantage from modernizing legacy systems while also establishing a robust foundation for growth,” said Wenli Yuan, a senior analyst at Celent and author of the report. “In the industry at large, due to the complexity of these projects, the probability of realizing these benefits is often quite uncertain. Consequently, few insurers have completed front to back modernization processes. This is what makes the AMI transformation praiseworthy.”

“We are very pleased to be able to congratulate AMI Insurance on being named a 2015 Model Insurer for the success of a project that shows true vision for the future of insurance,” said Alec Miloslavsky, CEO and executive chairman for EIS Group. “It is extremely gratifying to see AMI Insurance recognized with this prestigious honor for the hard work of an outstanding team, and for their ongoing success with core administration modernization that not only increases agility and scalability, but improves the customer experience as well.”

More information about the award is available as a case study in the Celent Model Insurer Asia 2015: Case Studies in Effective Use in Insurance report. A copy of this report featuring the AMI case study is available for download here.