CIO

Lumley refreshes IT infrastructure

Insurance company adopts pay as you go model.

Lumley General Insurance in New Zealand has renewed its contract with Unisys to implement a technology refresh of the IT infrastructure, supporting the company’s current core insurance applications. The three-year contract renewal builds on a 20-year relationship in which Unisys has provided mainframe and datacentre services, says Unisys.

The implementation includes two ClearPath Libra 4090 mainframe servers, which feature a pay-for-use business model and metering technology. This pay-for-use business model means Lumley pays for the resources it consumes, while providing the ability to tap into additional processing power when needed.

“The pay-as-you-use capabilityis designed to support the fundamentals of our business – the need to be able to access and process the right information to support our customers within a flexible, cost-effective and responsive structure,” says Mike Gardner, IT manager, Lumley Insurance.

The ClearPath servers will support the current Lumley core insurance applications, which are used to underwrite and process policies. They will be housed at the Unisys datacentres in Auckland and Kapiti, near Wellington, to provide datacentre back-up capability.

Brett Hodgson, managing director, Unisys NZ, says that Lumley is among the first to use ClearPath Libra 4090s in New Zealand. In the past, the insurance company would have had to buy a monthly processing capacity cap based on the performance requirements during their busiest periods. This means they would be paying for idle capacity during quieter periods.

Lumley Insurance is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wesfarmers. Lumley Australia announced late last year that it is boosting investments in new technology platforms for its core business applications, as part of a wider programme to upgrade those systems and offer more online products.