Lloyd's Canada turns to TELUS to double its business capacity and ensure its business continuity

Lloyd's of London is a society of members who work in syndicates to underwrite insurance policies and wrote $1.3 billion in premiums in 2005. Lloyd’s Canada provides services to Lloyd’s of London including processing of premiums and claims. Much documentation is generated – and until 2001, most of it was paper-based, requiring almost 50 people to enter it into the firm’s systems. To improve efficiencies and make things easier for clients, Lloyd’s Canada invited proposals for a complete outsourcing solution. TELUS was chosen to run operations and revamp business processes. TELUS assumed direct responsibility for all operational functions except governance and certain compliance activities – and TELUS and Lloyd’s Canada created Lloyd’s Information Exchange (Lineage), a new way of delivering services to members. Fully managed by TELUS, the application and infrastructure deployed a portal for anytime, anywhere access, timely reporting, browser-based applications for streamlined, secure and timely data capture, an online knowledge base for up-to-date information dissemination and a Business Service Centre that provides a single point of contact for members. All this without interrupting the day-to-day business of Lloyd's and managing the change with its clients.

TELUS also retrained the Lloyd's Canada staff, and included stringent Service Level Agreements in its con-tract. As a result of the revamp, paper purchases have declined by 90%. Total operational costs were reduced drastically. The firm's capacity to process business doubled, at virtually no increase in costs.

A disaster recovery and business continuity plan was also part of the TELUS contract and has already proven itself twice. When a power blackout hit the eastern seaboard in August 2003, Lloyd's Canada was unaffected. Its systems continued operating from the TELUS Internet Data Centre that houses them. On a Sunday night in May 2005, a water main burst above Lloyd's Canada's head office in Montreal, flooding its offices. TELUS established temporary key systems and Lloyd's Canada was in business at 8 a.m. Monday, servicing its clients as if nothing had happened.

“By partnering with TELUS, Lloyd's Canada has reinvent-ed the way we deliver our business and has transformed our business culture,” says Nicholas Smith, President of Lloyd's Canada. “We are very impressed with the flexibility, responsiveness and capabilities of the TELUS team. TELUS was the best choice.” Julian James, Director of World Wide Markets, Lloyd's, agrees. “This project was deployed thanks to TELUS' dedication, effort and commitment to professionally delivering a project on time and on budget. Lloyd's recognizes and appreciates that this was no small task and applauds its accomplishment.”