Aon is the UK's largest insurance broker and a provider of risk management services, with 7,500 employees across 86 locations. The company turned to Mercury when evaluating how best to create the Aon Collaborative and Integration Framework (ACIF), which aims to automate the claims management process. As well as a web-based portal to connect claims administrators, the project involved integration with external applications used by loss adjusters and underwriters.

Mercury's automated test solutions, part of the company's BTO suite for application delivery, were used to generate optimum system performance for all IT users. During the development of ACIF, Mercury Quality Center and Mercury Performance Center solutions were used to analyse the performance of each application as they were being designed. Mercury also works with Aon to ensure the optimum performance of all of its other applications each day.

"Mercury has enhanced our business operations by optimising our applications," said Adrian Dabell, Director of Technology for Aon UK. "The claims process is a primary cost centre for any insurance company. Mercury allowed us not only to introduce web services with confidence, but by identifying potential problems with the intended architecture we generated cost savings in the region of 20 per cent."

Mercury has enabled Aon UK to improve its operational efficiency through better use of collaboration technologies. The successful introduction of the web services platform enabled Aon UK to lower administration time across the claims process reducing overheads by 20 per cent. It has also reduced the ACIF's development cycle by 30 to 40 per cent and improved the composition of applications stored on the portal, reducing download times and increasing user satisfaction.

The UK insurance market accounts for 9 per cent of the world's total insurance premiums. Consolidation in recent years had led to intense margin pressures, so cost savings on operational procedures is critical for brokers and policy providers. Improving largely manual claims management processes through the web services platform has enabled Aon UK to introduce a level of automation that sees customer communication, broker interaction, underwriting and loss adjustment far more closely integrated, without impacting customer service.

"The induction of ACIF was an ambitious project but critical for Aon. Mercury enabled the applications to be delivered with confidence, so that the desired cost savings could be achieved quickly and clearly," said David Harrison, UK managing director of Mercury. "Mercury's application delivery solutions deliver the high level of automation required in the UK insurance market, while ensuring reliability and improved customer service. Optimal performance of business processes can often make all the difference in drives to improve profitability and competitiveness."