ZURICH FINANCIAL SVCS EXPANDS RiskIntelligence EXTRANET

In e-business, "first-to-market" is crucial to establishing leadership and competitive advantage.

Zurich U.S. Insurance, a $2.6 billion insurance and risk management corporation, seized the first-to-market opportunity in 1998 by launching RiskIntelligence, the first customer care extranet in the risk management marketplace. Since then this extranet, which is powered by WebIntelligence from Business Objects, has been a huge success, providing improved customer relationships, competitive advantage, and cost savings for Zurich U.S. Due to the success of this service, Business Objects and Zurich Financial Services Group announced at the Zurich Corporate Symposium that they will expand this extranet outside the U.S. operation to Zurich Financial Services' global accounts. Zurich Financial Services Group is a $45 billion leader in financial protection and asset accumulation (based on 1998 figures).

Zurich U.S. envisioned the impact that an Internet-based information delivery platform could have for their clients, and delivered RiskIntelligence, an innovative customer service extranet. The system uses WebIntelligence, the query, reporting, and online analytical processing tool (OLAP) from Business Objects, one of the world's leading providers of ebusiness intelligence (e-BI) solutions.

Accessible anytime, anywhere, and by any device with a Web browser, Zurich U.S. clients now have interactive access to over 90 standard, up-to-the-minute reports via the Zurich U.S. extranet. Reports are organized in various categories, including loss data by customer location, type of injury, product line, loss, and size of loss. For examples of RiskIntelligence template reports, go to Zurich U.S. Website at www.zurichus.com, click on Customer Online Services, and see the link on RiskIntelligence.

The service has been a huge success for both Zurich U.S. and their customers. With access to this information, risk managers at client companies can identify an isolated problem before it becomes a major trend. Then they can take corrective action to secure savings on insurance costs for their companies. For example, a risk manager might identify an unusual spike in back injuries at a particular factory, and recommend increased use of forklifts and lifting training.

In addition, Zurich U.S. established significant competitive advantage and cost savings by delivering this e-business service to their customers. In a recent study Zurich U.S. found that the RiskIntelligence extranet has helped to attract and retain five percent of all new business for the company. Also, by eliminating the need to ship CDs to clients at the end of each month and transferring this information system to the Internet, the company estimates they have saved up to $400,000 this year with RiskIntelligence. Based on these and other savings related to adapting their business to the Internet, Zurich estimates an overall return on investment of 249% over three years.

Due to the success of this application at Zurich U.S., Zurich Financial Services Group is now piloting this application for their global accounts in the corporate customer segment. Called Global Financial Intelligence, the service will allow Zurich to continue enjoying their "first to market status," as they provide the benefits of an e-business intelligence extranet to their customers worldwide.

"Zurich Financial Services Group's e-business strategy is based on providing solutions that ensure our customers' success, and create a more cost-efficient internal organization," said Tom Kaiser, member of the enlarged group executive board and head of Zurich's corporate customer division. "We are very pleased with our partnership with Business Objects, as we have worked together to achieve these two goals and look forward to continuing this as we expand our relationship worldwide."

"Global Financial Intelligence demonstrates the power and impact of the service side of e-business," said Frank Colletti, director of e-business at Zurich U.S., and the lead manager of the RiskIntelligence project. "This application has allowed us to truly amaze our customers, and exceed all our expectations. The proven leadership and track record of Business Objects in the business intelligence extranet market and the scalability of WebIntelligence played a crucial role in this success."

"Zurich Financial Services Group is the type of e-business innovator which sets the standards for an industry," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "Both Zurich and Business Objects recognized a trend early -- the delivery of e-business intelligence content to customers, partners, and suppliers, -- and now enjoy undisputed leadership in our respective fields. We applaud Zurich U.S. for their success in North America and look forward as Zurich Financial Services Group expands this service to global program customers worldwide."

About Zurich Financial Services Group

The Zurich Financial Services Group is a global leader in the financial services industry, providing its customers with solutions in the area of financial protection and asset accumulation. The group concentrates its activities in four core businesses: non-life and life insurance, reinsurance and asset management. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, the group's worldwide presence builds on strong positions in its three home markets -- the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. It has offices in more than 60 countries reaching over 33 million customers and employing 68,000 people. Based on consolidated figures for 1998, the group achieved gross premiums of USD 45 billion. This amount includes insurance deposits as well as premiums from the Farmers Exchanges. The net income before one-time merger and other restructuring costs amounted to USD 2.8 billion. On June 30, 1999, the group had USD 423 billion of assets under management of which USD 257 billion represent funds managed for third-party institutional and retail customers. www.zurich.com.

About Zurich U.S. Insurance

A member of the Zurich Financial Services Group, Zurich U.S. is a leading insurance and risk management organization dedicated to providing business insurance and risk management solutions to commercial enterprises of all types and sizes.

Along with an unrivalled array of business solutions, Zurich U.S., building on 90 years of experience in the United States, offers customers the security of financial strength, reflected in high ratings of A+ (Superior) from A.M. Best for financial strength and AA+ (Excellent) from Standard & Poor's for claims paying ability.

About Business Objects

Business Objects is a leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions. The company coined the term e-business intelligence in 1998 to describe the intersection of business intelligence and the Internet.

Using e-business intelligence, organizations can access, analyze, and share information in intranet, extranet, and e-business environments. In intranets, the company's products provide employees with information to make better business decisions, and are used in environments ranging from workgroups of 20 users to enterprise deployments exceeding 20,000. In the extranet environment, the company is pioneering the use of e-BI in applications that allow organizations to build stronger relationships by linking customers, partners, and suppliers via the Internet. In addition, the company's products can improve the performance of an e-business by providing reporting and analysis against the ever-expanding amount of transaction and profile data that is collected each day throughout the World Wide Web.

Founded in 1990, Business Objects pioneered the modern business intelligence industry by inventing and patenting a "semantic layer" that insulates users from the technical complexity of database systems. Today, the company has sold more than 1,910,000 licenses to over 10,200 organizations in more than 80 countries. Business Objects can be reached at 408-953-6000 and www.businessobjects.com.

Contact Business Objects, Randy Cairns 408-953-6036 rcairns@businessobjects.com.