The ongoing investment into Combined's Endeavour system will derive substantial business benefits and cost savings for the UK and Ireland operations as the company moves towards consolidating its operations onto the one system.

This enterprise-level application will improve the control of all aspects of Combined's accident and healthcare insurance business by consolidating all data related to the company's policies, policyholders, representatives and business units, and providing a single view of the whole business.

Combined Insurance, a subsidiary of AON Corporation, one of the largest insurance, brokerage, and consulting firms in the world, has retained LogicaCMG to manage the whole of this 15,000 man-day business transformation programme. LogicaCMG is deploying the full range of its management, consultancy and technical services to lead this programme in a collaborative manner with its Combined Insurance colleagues. Notably, a large proportion of the systems integration and development activities are being performed by LogicaCMG's international offshore capabilities in Bangalore, India.

The initial stage of the programme, due for completion in spring 2006, will benefit Combined Insurance across its operations in the UK and Ireland. Once established in the company's Australian, UK and Ireland markets, Endeavour may also be rolled out to other countries. Some of the benefits of the company-wide system include:

• Reduction of information repositories - the unification of country networks safeguards information from unnecessary duplication and reduces the level of dirty data
• Increased data mining abilities - creates single view of customer allowing opportunities for cross and up-selling of additional services
• Automation of billing - through new interfaces with banking institutions, providing highly cost effective and customer centric billing and other services
• Increased marketing capabilities and competitiveness - improved access to customer information allowing effective matching of solutions to needs,and greater business intelligence are other benefits Combined will gain
• Increased business effectiveness - by consolidating Combined's international operations into a single business network, servicing all offices in all countries
• In addition, international consolidation of the business will allow more flexible products to be designed, satisfying both commercial and regulatory requirements. Finally real-time call handling, as well as more effective management and use of customer data will also improve customer service.

Sue Bertlin, vice president and director of administration, Combined Insurance, said: "The move towards using Endeavour as a standardised system for us to conduct our business is of critical importance. The improvements it will bring in terms of cost savings and increased marketing effectiveness are crucial to us as we build our business. LogicaCMG was selected because we wanted to work with a global partner that could provide a broad range of services across the entire Service Delivery Lifecycle. Its experience in developing and supporting global IT products was a major factor in our decision-making process and we are pleased to be working with a company that can provide us with world class programme leadership and technical support."

Chris Geldard, client director, LogicaCMG Financial Services commented: "LogicaCMG's experience in implementing and supporting major business transformation and infrastructure changes makes us well suited to deliver significant benefits to Combined Insurance. Together with the strength of our global delivery model, we will be able to help Combined improve the efficiency of its business processes and continue to grow in this competitive marketplace."