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Press release:

Ref: OGI0313
9th December 2011

Open GI Customer Hughes Insurance Named Company of the Year

Hughes Insurance, Northern Ireland’s largest independent broker, has been named company of the year at the UTV Business Eye Awards 2011, in association with easyJet.

Hughes Insurance with over 30 years’ experience, scooped the prestigious award for its continued growth and investment.  Evidenced by opening a new 44,000 sq.ft.head quarter office earlier this year in Newtownards, Hughes Insurance has enjoyed continued success and growth in Personal Lines with the majority of new business being generated from its website.

With a strategy focused on efficiency savings and generating new business, Hughes Insurance has worked closely with its technology partner Open GI to make a number of significant IT investments to automate much of the new business post quote and fulfilment process.  By using eBroker for Personal Lines and Enhanced Payment Processing solutions, Hughes Insurance has been able to benefit from substantial business benefits by streamlining its existing workflow processes and improving the customer experience of purchasing policies online.  A notable improvement for Hughes, has been the ability to apply their own dynamic pricing rules in real-time to van, motor and home online quotes by using Active Quote for e-commerce.

By upgrading to InfoCentre Plus, Hughes Insurance are now able to quickly and easily see a clear picture of every aspect of their business performance such as renewals, diaries, debtors/creditors and effectiveness of marketing through to regulatory performance to help hasten business decisions.

Gareth Brady, Chief Executive Officer, Hughes Insurance, said: “We have made a considerable investment in Information Technology to help us to achieve our ambitious growth targets and strategy for increasing internal workflow efficiencies and growing the business.  Open GI, our trusted technology partner have been a big help in establishing these huge improvements and helping us to attain our growth targets.”

Simon Hughes, Sales & Marketing Director, Open GI, said: “We are delighted that Hughes Insurance have won this award and we are even more pleased that we have been able to assist Hughes with their business strategy by working with them as their business partner.  Over the last twelve months we have worked closely with Hughes to deliver a number of solutions, including bespoke developments to the Core Back-Office, all of which have delivered significant business benefits to improving productivity and enhancing the customer experience.”

For More Information about Open GI:
Adele Clarkson
Marketing and PR Manager
Open GI
Tel: +44 (0)1905 754455
email: adele.clarkson@opengi.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Open GI supplies market leading IT solutions to insurance brokers across the UK & Ireland. With 20,000 users in around 2,000 firms, the company has a 40% share of the UK broker market and is committed to technological innovation. Open GI technology enables personal and commercial lines brokers trading in standard and niche markets to streamline business activity and become more profitable. With a workforce of 350 people and a 30-year heritage, the company enjoys a strong financial performance. For the year ended 31st May 2010 Open GI reported revenues of £35.0 million and an operating profit of £21.1 million.