LONDON, March 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- SSP, a leading global provider of insurance technology, is pleased to congratulate Calliden on its success at the Celent Model Insurer Awards. The international research and advisory firm, which specialises in technology strategies, recognised Calliden for consolidating multiple legacy systems to a modern platform, SSP's S4i (http://www.ssp-uk.com/insurers/sirius-for-insurance-software.aspx? sitemap_id=133), enabling growth in the start-up operation.

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Nick Kirk, CEO at Calliden said: Simplifying our business is a key strategic imperative for the group. Rationalising our systems is an integral part of this process and it is pleasing to be recognised by Celent for achieving a number of important system conversion milestones.

In its new report, Model Insurer 2010: Case Studies of Effective Technology Use in Insurance, Celent reviews IT best practices and the measurable business results to evaluate 'Model Insurer Components'. In selecting Calliden, the report highlighted that the implementation of S4i has delivered significant business benefits, reducing annual insurance systems running costs by 30% and improving its efficiency by facilitating a significant increase in electronically traded commercial package business.

In addition, the new platform has enabled Calliden to respond quickly to the market - product changes which would previously have taken months can now be made overnight, whilst faster data analysis has improved pricing and rating decisions, vital to managing loss ratios.

We had seen others attempt to migrate from these legacy systems some three times without prior success, said Glen Hickey, group executive, information technology, Calliden Group. With SSP the conversion of our first two legacy systems to S4i took less than a year from start to go-live. SSP is a great team to work with and S4i supports the needs of our business today and for its future growth.

We congratulate Calliden on their recognition by Celent, commented Laurence Walker, chief executive at SSP. In the past many insurers have been put off converting from one system to another due to the risk of failure, however, with a challenging economic environment and intense competition, reducing IT costs and improving business efficiency have become major priorities. It is pleasing that our experience and the flexibility of S4i have helped Calliden to replace multiple legacy systems and support the transformation of their business.

Notes to Editors:

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SOURCE: SSP

CONTACT: For more information about SSP, please call Daniel Fletcher on+44(0)121-779-8334 / +44(0)7920-078349 or email daniel.fletcher@ssp-uk.com.