Fortis (Insurance, UK) an award-wining provider of personal and commercial insurance solutions has won two awards at this years' ifs School of Finance, Financial Innovation Awards, one for the Most Effective Insurance Initiative and one for the Most Innovative Application of Technology.
The winners of the ifs Financial Innovation Awards were announced at a ceremony held in London on November 21st. Now in its tenth year, these awards recognise and support innovation in financial services. Past ceremonies have seen awards presented to both large and small financial service organisations across the globe.
Barry Smith, Chief Executive of Fortis comments: "We are absolutely delighted to win two awards at this years' ifs Financial Innovation Awards. This achievement further highlights Fortis' ongoing strategy to target the digital generation by continuously developing our multi-distribution offering as well as delivering innovative solutions for the benefit of the customer.
"We constantly strive to meet our partners' and customers' needs. To win these awards is a great achievement and can only happen with the dedication of the Fortis team and its partners. My thanks go to them, and our customers alike."
Gary Millner, Director of Corporate Relations and Communications at the ifs School of Finance, comments: "The ifs Financial Innovation Awards are now firmly established as one of the most prestigious in the financial services industry. Entries from organisations across the globe combined with a rigorous judging process mean that those who win one of the award categories, such as Fortis can take pride in having truly excelled in the industry.
Put simply, the awards have again provided a great opportunity for innovators in the financial services industry to gain recognition for their efforts."
Fortis won awards for:
- Most Effective Insurance Initiative - Fortis undertook a unique review of its car repairer network, which led to 130 of the most forward thinking and customer focused car repairers being appointed to its ‘Solutions Centres' network. In the last year, market-leading initiatives such as e-invoicing have been successfully rolled out to Fortis' Solutions Centres in a bid to continuously improve the customer experience as well as Fortis' supplier relationship.
- Most Effective Insurance Initiative - Fortis' development, and the introduction, of a voice recognition and SMS technology into its travel insurance distribution channel used by business partners, allowing customers to obtain answers to simple questions but with the ability to escalate the query to a human operator at any point if the query becomes more complex.
These awards build on the company's recognition as General Insurer of the Year at the 2007 British Insurance Awards. Fortis was also awarded ‘Assistance/Claims Handler of the Year' at the recent International Travel Insurance Journal Awards and, subsidiary RIAS was names ‘Personal Lines Broker of the Year' at the Insurance Times Awards last week.
--Ends--
Notes to editors:
ifs Financial Innovation Awards
The ifs Financial Innovation Awards are held by the ifs School of Finance, an international organisation incorporated by Royal Charter, providing qualifications to the financial services industry since 1879. Today the ifs School of Finance has over 80,000 students in 100 countries.
ifs Financial Innovation Award categories:
Most effective insurance initiative
This award is for an initiative within the insurance industry, which differentiates your product, service or business from the rest of the marketplace and has had a positive financial impact on your business.
Most innovative application of technology - insurance
How has the insurance organisation successfully applied technology to an area of the business to creatively change a product, service or process that has made a difference.
Fortis was shortlisted in the following categories:
Most effective insurance initiative - for use of SMS and voice recognition technology
Most innovative application of technology - for use of SMS and voice recognition technology
Best direct channels initiative - for use of SMS distribution
In the UK Fortis (Insurance) is a leading provider of award-winning personal and commercial lines insurance solutions in the UK and was named 2007 General Insurer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards. The insurer's successful customer-centric strategy has been founded on aligning its activities to how customers want to buy insurance, combined with delivering high quality products, manufactured at costs better than market norms.
Fortis's unique multi-distribution capability enables it to deliver products face-to-face, by phone (inbound and outbound), over the Internet and via SMS technology. Aligning its business activities with its partners' general insurance strategies enables Fortis to offer end-to-end white label capabilities in product development, marketing, campaign management, sales, fulfilment and claims - providing a seamless integration with partner brands.
Insuring in excess of 6.6 million customers and working with a range of partners, Fortis is recognised for delivering consistent and high-quality customer experiences. It employs 2,901 people as of 30/09/07 with a head office based in Eastleigh and others in Belfast, Bournemouth, Gloucester, Haywards Heath, Redditch, and Stoke-on-Trent. In 2006, its profit before tax and interest was £77.5 million and its GWP was 688.3 million.
Fortis Bank UK provides specialist finance solutions to large corporate, institutional and mid-sized companies such as: trade finance, treasury services, diverse asset finance, global cash and liquidity management, acquisition and mezzanine finance, syndications and structured finance.
The bank offers expert services in commodity trade and shipping finance, renewable energy finance derivatives and derivatives clearing and securities lending. Fortis Bank Global Clearing NV is an important independent clearer of futures, options and related equities on most major Exchanges.
Fortis Bank SA/NV is authorised by the Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission in Belgium and the Financial Services Authority, regulated by the Financial Services Authority for the conduct of UK investment business. The Fortis Bank UK head office is based in the City of London and the bank's expanding UK network includes offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Colchester, Crawley, Leeds, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Reading and Southampton.
Fortis is an international financial services provider engaged in banking and insurance. We offer our personal, business and institutional customers a comprehensive package of products and services through our own channels, in collaboration with intermediaries and through other distribution partners.
With a market capitalisation of EUR 48.5 billion (31/10/2007), Fortis ranks among the fifteen largest financial institutions in Europe. Our sound solvency position, our presence in 50 countries and our dedicated, professional workforce of 60,000 enable us to combine global strength with local flexibility and provide our clients with optimum support. More information is available on http://www.fortis.com/
JBA Public Relations
Tricia Defty or James Bishop
Tel: 020 8875 5460
Email: or