Chennai: Phoenix Global Solutions and IBM India have entered into a strategic partnership to offer IT solutions for the insurance industry. Phoenix Global, with its strong technology-insurance background, and IBM, the world leader in IT, will together provide a comprehensive technology solution for the domestic insurance market.

The partners have bagged MetLife India Insurance, one of the new life insurance companies in India, as their first client in this field.

Phoenix Global is offering holistic IT support and is managing an array of customer requirements like managing documents, customer relationship, sales force, recruitment and investment. Says Phoenix Global managing director Satish Bangalore: IBM and Phoenix Global have partnered to ensure a smooth take-off for the burgeoning insurance companies as well as to complement the technology initiatives of the established mutual fund companies. The IT support, offerings and relationship with MetLife India Insurance, our first client, will be a testimonial for the success of the technology-insurance model.

The IBM-Phoenix alliance is another example of IBMs commitment to go-to-market with leading independent software vendors under the PartnerWorld for Developers programme, says IBM India country manager (sales) Ashish Kumar.

The domestic insurance market is what most IT companies are looking at. But many new insurers are bringing IT solutions from their foreign partners. Moreover, Tata Consultancy Services, after taking over CMC, is a major force to reckon with. CMCs Genisys programme is what two public sector general insurers here are using.

Phoenix Global is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Phoenix Companies, a major in wealth management with $90 billion assets under its management. The Indian development centre is located at Bangalore.

Phoenix Global has a demonstrated ASP (application service provider) model that focuses on the needs of insurance and finance sectors. The ASP offerings include a combination of industry specific applications, customisation support, infrastructure support and ongoing application and technical support services.

Phoenix Global is now ready with a bouquet of IT solutions for Indian insurance, mutual fund, pension fund and investment trust companies. The IT offerings are Midas, an integrated investment management solution, insurance workflow desktop, underwriters support system, e-recruitment and virtual university, to name a few.

The company will shortly launch and distribute e-Seg, a core insurance administration and processing system for insurers. e-Seg is a comprehensive solution that will support a variety of life insurance products including endowment, whole life, term, unit-linked and annuities.

It caters to the new business processing, policy servicing, reinsurance, claims processing, agency administration and commission processing needs of insurance companies. e-Seg is built using web-based technologies and tools. It can be easily configured to meet the specific needs of each company.