Ventiv Technology

3 | | RISK MANAGEMENT Technology Read more online at www.strategic-risk-global.com/asia RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDY: UNITING CHURCH IN AUSTRALIA Return on investment: the cost vs cost savings of risk management technology How Uniting Church in Australia implemented a new risk management and insurance technology platform and realised a 30% saving in its property insurance programme You can have the best risk management processes and controls within your industry, but unless you can articulate that and evidence that to the insurance market, it can be ine!ectual." These are the words of Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) head of risk and insurance Christian Mathis, who, by his own admission, used to go to the insurance market "with his fingers crossed". Fast-forward five years and UCA has gone from "worst in class to best in class" when it comes to the quality and scope of risk profiling data, resulting in a 30% saving this year to its property insurance programme. Key to that transformation has been the implementation of a new risk management information system (RMIS) platform, which has allowed Mathis and his team to change the way it gathers and analyses data for its risk management and risk transfer programmes. UCA is an umbrella organisation that, in addition to churches, owns and operates childcare centres, aged care facilities, schools and hospitals, and runs a range of social justice programmes such as foster care services and supervised injection centres. It's a complex organisational structure, with each arm of the business having its own unique nuances with regard to risk and insurance. Mathis says that when he joined UCA in 2010, the organisation desperately needed to reposition its risk profile. "I knew when I first got into the role that for me to re-establish and re-engage the insurance market, we would have to have good-quality information and data. One of my first projects was to think about what information we needed in the medium to long term to not only provide to the insurance market, but also for the sort of reports that I believe our internal boards and stakeholders should have," he says. After a tender process, UCA opted for an RMIS platform, owned by software company Ventiv Technology, which enables a company to centralise and streamline its risk management and insurance data, create reports and automate manual processes. Prior to implementing the technology, for example, risk data for insurance renewals was gathered by a paper-based questionnaire that was sent out to the various UCA boards and entities for completion. About 30% of the surveys were filled in and returned, Mathis says, with varying levels of buy-in from the di!erent arms of the business. "When we used to take that information to the insurance market, we did it with our fingers crossed," he says. Today, tailored questionnaires are distributed electronically to UCA's 600-plus entities, with di!erent questions asked of each part of the organisation. The success rate of the questionnaires is now more than 90%, Mathis says, "and that gives us confidence in what we declare to insurers". A Lloyd's broker by trade, Mathis says that over the past 10-15 years, he has witnessed first-hand a significant change in how a risk is presented to insurers. "In my old days at Lloyd's, you could get away with some claims stats, a (placement) slip and a basic risk profile." But underwriters today require more than just loss experience, he says. "They want evidence of that and they want to challenge it and they want to be able to ask further questions." This was highlighted in UCA's most recent property insurance renewal. Previously, the asset schedule for its property insurance programme was simply a listing of all of the group's di!erent properties. Schools, churches, aged care homes and more were all lumped into the one portfolio. "Year on year the portfolio's pricing had stayed very stable and it was locked into one particular market," explains UCA's We were able to do some really sophisticated analysis [of UCA's risk profile] and present an alternative structure to the insurance market that enabled us to unlock discounts and attract other markets to the table" Penny Wasik JLT

• Cover