SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE), the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently, congratulates the winners of its 2020 Innovation Awards: ConTe.it, Insurance Australia Group (IAG), the Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company (Wawanesa) with Capgemini, and The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). In its fourteenth year, this year’s awards honor Guidewire customers that are adapting to an accelerating pace of industry change and evolving customer needs in innovative ways. Winners were announced during Connections Reimagined, Guidewire’s annual customer conference reimagined as a virtual event.

The 2020 winners are:

ConTe.it for leveraging Guidewire Digital to launch a channel for independent agents in less than 6 months.

ConTe.it sought to become a data-driven company, offering assistance, convenience, and protection to its customers, while running its business in a more digital way. At the same time, the company was also looking for additional distribution channels to help it keep up with its growth ambitions.

ConTe.it started its journey with Guidewire in February 2016 when it began its implementation of Guidewire PolicyCenter and BillingCenter. Shortly thereafter, the company selected Guidewire Digital as the best foundation for a platform dedicated to intermediaries (independent agents) given that it offered the capabilities the company required. ConTe.it was able to launch a product tailored to the needs of its intermediaries in less than six months due to the high quality of the project execution. To ensure the project progressed quickly, the team was divided into sub-teams, led by experts, with each sub-team working toward one of the five project pillars: sales management, brand and product positioning, user experience in sales application, claims management, and risk and analysis.

The project has enabled ConTe.it to expand into a new distribution channel, diversify its product offerings, and approach wider segments of customers.

ConTe.it has been an in-production PolicyCenter and BillingCenter customer since 2018, and an in-production Guidewire Digital customer since 2019.

For additional information on ConTe.it, visit .

IAG, Australia’s largest general insurer, utilizes AI and ClaimCenter powered innovation to help reimagine the motor total loss claim experience and help customers after a car accident.

IAG is using technology to help reduce the emotional impact of a car accident by providing customers with more certainty in the claims experience. IAG implemented Guidewire ClaimCenter to help improve the claims experience for customers and the team handling the claims process. In addition, the company launched a machine learning model built to identify a potential total loss vehicle at first notification of loss and help set and manage customer expectations from the outset.

With ClaimCenter and the machine learning model, IAG has improved claim cycle times to give its customers faster outcomes, reduced claims costs, and uplifted customer advocacy to improve retention and support sustainable growth. The technology has been rolled out on IAG’s brands including NRMA Insurance, SGIC and SGIO.

IAG has been an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2012.

For additional information on IAG, visit .

Wawanesa for its Strategic Systems Renewal initiative, an enterprise-wide digital strategy that included multiple Guidewire implementations and is improving sales, distribution, and the overall insurance experience for customers and brokers.

Wawanesa embarked on its Guidewire journey, partnering with Capgemini and other local partners, and invested in digital technology to acquire the ability to launch new products and new services in all its regions, obtain real-time rating, and be able to go to market more quickly than before. The organization also needed the ability to take advantage of data-driven decision-making and better tailor the products offered to its customers. Wawanesa’s goal was to transform the way its brokers and customers interacted with the company, focusing on the experience for customers and broker partners.

After implementing the Guidewire platform, Wawanesa can now:

• Be more responsive to market changes, with 60-80 rate changes across the enterprise in a year, a notable improvement over the previous 12-15;

• Significantly reduce the use of paper and postage; and

• Enhance operational efficiencies resulting in increased levels of service to its policyholders and brokers.

For additional information on Wawanesa, visit .

The WSIB for improving the experience for people with work related, noise-induced hearing loss, adjudicators, and health care providers by reducing the time it takes to make decisions on these types of claims.

The WSIB is always looking for ways to help modernize its services and make it easier for people to work with them. Noise-induced hearing loss claims present unique challenges because many people with these claims are often retired already or no longer working in the place where they received the injury. Adjudicating these claims can take months due to missing claim information.

Leveraging Guidewire ClaimCenter, DataHub, and InfoCenter, the WSIB has been able to give people a self-explanatory online option to make work related, noise-induced hearing loss claims, which allows the WSIB to gather all of the information needed in one form, simplifying the process. The online form will be available later this year.

Using Guidewire has also helped the organization drive operational efficiency and improve its overall customer experience. The foundation the WSIB is laying with Guidewire integrations will extend to other claim types and enable the growth of future digital capabilities.

The WSIB has been an in-production BillingCenter and PolicyCenter customer since 2014, an in-production ClaimCenter customer since 2015, and an in-production DataHub and InfoCenter customer since 2016.

For additional information on WSIB, visit .

“Congratulations to our Guidewire Innovation Award winners,” said Brian Desmond, chief marketing officer, Guidewire Software. “The entries were extremely impressive making it challenging for the awards panel to select the winners. We are inspired by the innovative ways in which our customers use Guidewire to make insurance more convenient for their policyholders and agents, launch new products quickly, and continuously improve operational efficiency.”

The Innovation Awards were given out at Connections Reimagined, Guidewire’s annual customer conference. Guidewire hosted its 16th annual user conference virtually, and Connections Reimagined provided a forum for more than 4,000 attendees – customers, partners, and Guidewire employees – to come together to learn, collaborate, and network. The informative and inspirational conference lineup included a keynote from Guidewire CEO Mike Rosenbaum on Guidewire’s vision and roadmap, a tour of Banff, Guidewire’s latest platform release, a thought-provoking keynote from guest speaker Steven Van Belleghem about trends that will shape tomorrow’s industry, an Innovation Showcase featuring Guidewire PartnerConnect partners, and many opportunities for insurers to learn from their peers’ digital transformation stories. The next Connections Reimagined will take place on March 9, 2021.

About Guidewire Software

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. ​We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 400 insurers, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record, with 1,000+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

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