Lion of Africa chooses FICO Blaze Advisor to give them the competitive edge

Aug. 30, 2012 - PRLog -- LONDON — August, 2012 — “With FICO’s superior business rules technology, our entire underwriting team has the flexibility and control to meet our customer’s needs swiftly,” remarks Jonathan Holden, executive of operations at Lion of Africa. The business rules management system from FICO  allows South African Insurer, Lion of Africa, to create, modify, test and monitor underwriting decisions across all their business, thereby eliminating the cost and effort of supporting several different rating engines.

Lion of Africa is one of South Africa’s leading short-term insurers, and operates in the commercial and personal lines market segments with a range of specialist insurance products. In addition to covering many of the Top 100 JSE listed companies, the firm is also the largest insurer to the local authorities sector. Based in Johannesburg, Lion of Africa is also represented in the major metropoles and is still the only short term insurer to achieve a BBBEE level one rating.

“At Lion of Africa Insurance, we pride ourselves on providing simple and effective business solutions for each individual,” said Jonathan Holden. ”Using FICO Blaze Advisor, we can simulate the impacts of new underwriting guidelines on our book of business, and provide complete transparency to internal auditors and insurance regulators with ease.”

“We chose Blaze Advisor because it streamlines deployment of predictive models, adding another dimension of decision insight to Lion of Africa’s capabilities. With rules, predictive analytics, and the addition of third party data, Lion of Africa has significantly improved upon existing fraud detection, prevention and conversion capabilities.”

“FICO Blaze Advisor will help Lion of Africa advance its vision for a thoroughly connected and customer-centric insurance operation,” said Robin Findlay, who directs FICO’s operations in Africa and the Middle East. “While initially they will use FICO Blaze Advisor for personal lines underwriting, it is powerful enough to be extended in the future across several areas of their business.”

“By choosing advanced decision management in their underwriting, Lion of Africa have secured their position among the first rank of technology-driven insurers in this region,” said Gray Stopforth, Head of Sales at PIC Solutions. “FICO and PIC are working together to introduce the newest technologies and best practices from around the world to South African insurers. PIC Solutions were responsible for brokering this sale, and will support Lion of Africa’s use of FICO Blaze Advisor,” he adds.

FICO® Blaze Advisor® is the world's leading business rules system for managing complex decisions and provides a variety of industries with a scalable solution that delivers unprecedented agility, consistency and business control. FICO Blaze Advisor is widely used in the insurance industry worldwide, and is also the rules engine within FICO’s industry-leading applications for decision management.

PIC initially engaged with Lion of Africa in terms of enhancing their existing counter-fraud capabilities within both Claims and Underwriting, and currently is in the process of further developing an infrastructure and framework which demonstrates Lion of Africa’s proactive stance in the fight against fraud.
About FICO
FICO , formerly known as Fair Isaac, delivers superior predictive analytics solutions that drive smarter decisions. The company’s groundbreaking use of mathematics to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries and revolutionized the way risk is managed and products are marketed. FICO’s innovative solutions include the industry-leading solutions for measuring credit risk, managing credit accounts, identifying and minimizing the impact of fraud, and customizing consumer offers with pinpoint accuracy. Most of the world’s top banks, as well as leading insurers, retailers, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies rely on FICO solutions to accelerate growth, control risk, boost profits and meet regulatory and competitive demands. Learn more at www.fico.com. FICO: Make every decision count™.
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