The UK’s largest insurer, Norwich Union, part of the Aviva group, has contracted Intec to provide the billing technology for its Pay As You Drive Insurance™. Under the terms of the contract, Intec is supplying its Intec Convergent Billing (Singl.eView) software, plus associated professional services, to allow Norwich Union to generate itemised monthly bills.

Iain Napier, Director of Telematics at Norwich Union, said: “We selected Intec Convergent Billing because it is widely regarded as the telecoms industry’s most flexible and configurable billing technology, and because Intec was enthusiastic in working with us to maximise the potential of this brand new system.”

The adoption of Intec Convergent Billing for vehicle insurance underlines the flexibility of Intec’s technology, which is used by many of the world’s most innovative telecoms carriers, including Virgin Mobile and ‘3’. The process of rating and charging for vehicle usage is inherently similar to the billing processes used in telecoms, and it will allow Norwich Union to deliver sophisticated, itemised bills to customers with an accurate record of charges and how they are incurred.

“We are very excited to be a key part of this new offering from one of the industry’s most influential companies,” said Intec CEO, Kevin Adams. “When Norwich Union asked us to become involved, we could immediately see that this was an idea with great potential, not least because the sophistication of billing systems developed for telecoms can be used to deliver all sorts of new business opportunities to the customer. It also expands the use of our billing technology into a completely new market, which we believe could potentially be rolled out in many parts of the world.”

Pay As You Drive Insuranceâ„¢
Pay As You Drive Insurance uses a Global Positioning System (GPS)-based device installed in the vehicle to record customer journeys. The journey data is then relayed to a central computer using cellular technology. Norwich Union calculates the customer’s premium and an itemised monthly bill is produced. Norwich Union believes this represents a major breakthrough in the calculation of fairer motor insurance premiums and ultimately gives the policy holder greater control, flexibility and choice.

Intec Convergent Billing – One billing platform, for any service, and for every customer.
Intec has an outstanding capability in convergent billing, centred on our world class billing family, Singl.eView. Over 60 leading global companies rely on Intec Convergent Billing to deliver pre-paid, post-paid and real-time billing, from a single platform, for all their services. Intec Convergent Billing is designed to provide:

– Flexibility – to meet all present and future requirements
– Configurability – to let you innovate and compete faster
– Outstanding performance – to handle tens of millions of subscribers
– High availability – to protect revenues and increase customer satisfaction
– Low cost of ownership – to cut costs and improve margins

Built using modern, industry-standard technologies, Intec Convergent Billing is proven in production at some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies. Naturally, it is compatible with all major network technologies and services in use today and, as part of the wider Intec product family, is supported by carrier grade solutions in areas such as convergent mediation, activation and interconnect.

About Norwich Union
Norwich Union is the UK’s largest general insurer with a market share of around 14%, with a focus on insurance for individuals and small businesses. It is a leading provider of life, pensions and investment products and one of the largest Financial Adviser (FA) providers. FAs provide over 70% of the company’s long-term savings business in the UK.

About Intec
Intec Telecom Systems plc is a leading supplier of business and operations support systems (BSS/OSS) to over 350 customers across the global telecoms industry. Intec is a world market leader in convergent billing systems, inter-carrier billing and mediation. Intec’s customer base now includes a substantial number of the world’s top 100 carriers. Founded in 1997, Intec is listed on the London Stock Exchange (ITL.L) and has over 1,600 staff and 31 offices in 25 countries.

Intec’s product and solution portfolio includes:
– Retail billing and customer management
– Multi-service mediation and activation
– Inter-carrier billing settlements including US CABS and ITU-based settlement
– End-to-end content partner management
– Optimised wholesale routing and trading
– Real-time pre/post-paid mediation and charging
– A fully-integrated solution for IPTV charging, billing and user interaction

Intec’s customer base includes, among others, BellSouth Telecommunications Inc., Cable & Wireless, The Carphone Warehouse (UK), Cesky Telecom (Czech Republic), China Unicom, China Netcom, COLT Telecommunications, Deutsche Telekom, Eircom (Ireland), France Telecom, Hutchison 3G, MTN, Nitel (Nigeria), Reliance (India), SingTel Optus (Australia), O2, Orange, Telecom Argentina, Telecom Egypt, Telecom Italia, Tiscali, TPSA (Poland), Swisscom, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Telia, Telkom South Africa, Telstra, US Cellular, Vodafone, VimpelCom (Russia), Virgin Mobile, Vivo (Brasil), XO Communications and Verizon. For more information, visit the Intec website at www.intecbilling.com