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Esurance, a direct-to-consumer auto insurance company, is committed to taking the hassle out of shopping for, buying, and managing auto insurance. By leveraging technology and innovating traditional processes, the company has found environmentally friendly ways to simplify auto insurance from quote to claim— saving consumers time and money. Esurance's reliable auto insurance coverage is available to 85 percent of drivers in 28 states.

Consumer Benefits: Why Esurance Is in Business
Providing a positive customer experience in all aspects of its operations is Esurance's top priority. Though Esurance's technology is state-of-the-art, the company's customer commitment represents a personal way of doing business that some might call "old-fashioned."

Maximum Convenience Esurance's award-winning Web site is the easiest one-stop shop for consumers researching and buying their auto insurance on the Internet. With the fastest quotes available online, customers can get price estimates and compare quotes almost instantly. After getting a quote, customers buying their Esurance policies online are only minutes away from printing their insurance cards. Esurance has significantly shortened the auto insurance buying process by verifying driving records, claims histories, and consumer report information real-time. Esurance policyholders can access and make changes to their policies online anytime. If a policyholder loses an insurance card, another copy is always available in the policyholder's online account. In addition, policyholders can report minor claims online. By making documents available online and communicating with policyholders by email, Esurance saves millions of sheets of paper every year. Also, the company plants trees to offset the paper it does use. Round-the-Clock Customer Service & Claims Handling Because Esurance is committed to tailoring the consumer experience to individual preferences, Esurance provides customer service and claims handling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Since the company's claims reporting facility is always open, Esurance policyholders get back on the road faster. Esurance's claims professionals continually receive praise from Esurance customers. Furthermore, in its constant pursuit of environmentally friendly practices, Esurance employs hybrid claims vehicles in areas where they're available. Tailor-Made Premium Savings A focus on keeping insurance rates competitive is imbued in all aspects of Esurance's operations. By leveraging technology to streamline cumbersome and costly insurance processes, Esurance reduces operating costs. Such operating expense discipline results in savings to the company, savings that Esurance can then pass on to consumers in the form of more affordable rates. Esurance also keeps rates competitive by constantly refining its pricing and underwriting models. Esurance has moved away from pricing and underwriting models based on general attributes, and has created its own highly segmented pricing and underwriting programs. Because of Esurance's highly granular segmentation, its customers receive rates that most closely correspond to their individual characteristics. Informed Consumers Consumer education is an important corporate responsibility, particularly in the confusing world of auto insurance. Befuddled by the jargon and legalese endemic to the insurance industry, consumers often buy unnecessary or inadequate coverage. As a part of its efforts to explain insurance to the general public, comprehensive, "plain English" insurance help is available throughout the Web application and in Esurance's online Learning Center. Esurance also encourages safe driving, insurance awareness, and environmental stewardship through its "Esurance Insights" articles highlighting important topics related to cars and drivers. Consumers can also get extensive insurance guidance by using the Esurance Coverage Counselor, an interactive tool that helps customers choose the coverages, limits, and deductibles that best meet their needs.

Technology: How It All Works
Esurance continues to move its technology toward even more robust, dynamic, and secure architecture. The company is currently transitioning from its ASP/VB/COM+ platform to Microsoft .NET technology, supported by MS SQL Server for high-volume data storage and retrieval.

Successful initiatives this year include a new Policy Administration system, which allows transactional history tracking of all policy activity. The solution implements a Pipeline design pattern that emphasizes Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). In addition, a re-architected correspondence system is now in place offering a highly scalable solution featuring dynamic email design and generation with high-quality content. Along with delivering emails, the "Email Services" product also tracks and manages them for reliability and customer satisfaction.

In the coming year, Esurance will implement an evolution of the framework created for the Policy Administration system for its customer Web site. The first implementation of this framework, called "Smartflow", has already been introduced to Esurance's sales agent force via its Internal Sales application. The Smartflow framework implements the Front Controller design pattern-- again emphasizing SOA-- to offer a fully configurable and quickly deployable system. Web site applications using this framework will adapt to customer input, customizing and personalizing each user's experience.

At Esurance, safeguarding consumer information is of the utmost importance. Security across the system is maintained by using the secure sockets layer (SSL) and data encryption. The databases are distributed and mirrored for both scalability and safety. Esurance's Web site is hosted externally to ensure that it is available to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Insurance: What Esurance Offers
Though Esurance's operations are technology-intensive, the business of Esurance is insurance. Esurance is a subsidiary of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. (NYSE: WTM), a leading publicly traded financial services holding company specializing in property-casualty insurance and reinsurance. Esurance shares White Mountains' commitment to excellence in insurance practices, rigorous financial discipline, and pride of ownership.

Esurance's underwriting companies, Esurance Insurance Company and Esurance Property and Casualty Insurance Company are rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best. Esurance's financial strength ratings and strong backing mean that customers can count on their coverage from Esurance.

Esurance's reliable, convenient coverage is currently available in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.