Actian Ingres: Reliance Mutual relies on Actian Ingres to drive business growth
Company Size
11-200
Region
- Europe
Country
- United Kingdom
Product
- Actian Ingres database
Tech Stack
- UNIX
- Solaris 2.7
- C with embedded SQL
- Citrix presentation server
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
Reliance Mutual is a UK-based life and pensions company that has been in business for nearly a century. In 2003, the company undertook a fundamental shift in its business model. Rather than writing new policies, the company now buys poorly performing existing life and pensions policies from other insurers. This aggressive growth strategy relies on the company's ability to aggregate these disparate policies within a single, highly efficient administration system that can turn the previously unprofitable into a robust income generator. The company's assets have increased from £233 million in 2003 to £1.6 billion.
The Challenge
Reliance Mutual, a UK-based life and pensions company, underwent a significant shift in its business model in 2003. Instead of writing new policies, the company started buying poorly performing existing life and pensions policies from other insurers. This aggressive growth strategy relied on the company's ability to aggregate these disparate policies within a single, highly efficient administration system that could turn the previously unprofitable into a robust income generator. The transition posed a two-fold challenge for Reliance Mutual’s IT department – to build and maintain a database capable of managing tremendous volumes of data, including migrating and integrating blocks of newly acquired policies – and to do so with a staff that had been dramatically reduced as part of a strategic review.
The Solution
Reliance Mutual chose the Actian Ingres database to manage its massive volumes of data. The company examined Postgres as a free source alternative to Ingres, but found both the formality of commercial software licensing and the proven technical and operational advantages of Ingres too compelling to leave behind. The company's Ingres database currently holds details for more than 200,000 in-force policies as well as auditing tables and other data such as regulatory information – roughly a terabyte in all. The task of managing this huge repository is complicated further each time the company acquires an additional block of policies. The newly-arrived data includes both in-force policies and records of expired policies, requiring a decision to be made about what is migrated to the central system and what must be archived to ensure regulatory compliance.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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