Resolusion Press Release

For immediate release:

INTERRESOLVE AND ELISION JOIN FORCES TO CREATE INJURY CLAIMS ‘POWERHOUSE’

Market leaders bring schemes together to set industry standard for faster and more cost-effective claims settlement

4th May 2007 – A new market-wide personal injury claims scheme that speeds up the claims process and provides cost-effective claims settlement has been launched following the announcement that InterResolve and Elision are to join forces to launch the scheme.

‘Resolusion’ is the culmination of a 2 year pilot study with leading personal injury law firms, and insurers and is set to change the landscape of personal injury claims in the UK by significantly reducing 3rd party costs and settlement times.

Developed by InterResolve, the independent claims specialist, and technology and claims specialist company Elision, ‘Resolusion’ marks a strategic alliance between the two companies that brings together the best of their injury claims schemes. The new initiative is aimed at employers’, public liability and road traffic accident claims and is operational now. It delivers advanced processes for initial medical assessments for rehabilitation purposes together with agreed fixed-cost legal advice for claimants,
early mediation and the technology and other resources for high-volume claims administration. 

InterResolve and Elision have already invested a total of £5million together with significant levels of resources and planning in establishing alternative claims processes that avoid duplicated costs and deliver significant benefits to insurers, claimants and solicitors. The launch of Resolusion will mean tangible savings of over 50% in 3rd party transaction costs and reductions in claims settlement time by as much as 18 months.

InterResolve’s award-winning Bodily Injury Claims Scheme (BICS) and Elision’s large-scale technology platform capabilities and advanced rehabilitation assessment process are central to the success of Resolusion. The two companies are offering the service to large companies, local authorities, solicitors and insurers with employers’ and public liability and road traffic accident claims.

Commenting on the launch of Resolusion, Peter Ashdown-Barr, CEO of InterResolve, said: “This is a claims powerhouse that will set the industry standard for the future of personal injury compensation claims.

The cost and time savings already being achieved by the InterResolve scheme are now strengthened by joining forces with Elision, so that these benefits can be delivered on a much larger scale.”

Adrian Maurice, CEO of Elision said: “Bringing our claims handling and technology capability with InterResolve’s offering makes perfect sense. Resolusion is the result of a shared and continuing commitment to delivering more efficient claims processing and injury specific rehabilitation where appropriate.”
Early results from the pilot schemes have proven that the scheme provides insurers early notification of claims and helps retain captured claimants through an ethical process that focuses on collaboration between all sides, provides fixed cost independent legal advice for claimants and earlier settlements. Proportionate levels of legal advice are made available to unrepresented claimants in simple claims, with agreed price representation for more complex claims. The legal input will be provided by LawAlliance, the UK-wide claimant lawyer network set up by InterResolve.

Key to the success of Resolusion is the initial medical assessment process designed by Professor Mansel Aylward and already used for medical assessments for the DWP Pathways to Work programme. Elision was previously behind Claimsense and the medical assessment process [MAP] for the coal miners’ compensation scheme run by the DTI. The company already has the experience and technology that have been used for the scheduling and evidence gathering systems for schemes involving in excess of 1/2 million claims.

The launch of Resolusion comes on the back of the recently published consultation document published by the DCA – Peter Ashdown Barr commented: “We are delighted that the government appears to have taken on board many of the innovative improvements for claimants and cost savings for insurers that we have actually been delivering in the market for the past year. Areas such as earlier notification of claims, fixing claimant legal and other transaction costs at more proportionate prices and collaboration to remove duplicated costs are a major part of the Resolusion offering.”

InterResolve and Elision will continue to operate their existing systems for current users who will also be given the option to use the new, improved, resolusion offering.   
       
- ENDS -

For further information contact:
Alex Wise, Concise Public Relations on Tel: 020 7100 3960 or 07710 665 615

Notes for editors:

Resolusion
Resolusion is a strategic alliance between InterResolve Holdings Ltd and Elision Ltd. InterResolve is the contracting party with insurers, LawAlliance and other users of the offering, and Elision provides an advanced process for initial medical assessments for rehabilitation purposes, together with the high-capacity technology and other resources for volume
claims administration.

Resolution operates from InterResolve’s City office and Elision’s administration centre at Enfield Town.


InterResolve
The InterResolve Bodily Injury Claims Scheme won the 2006 Claims Initiative of the Year at the prestigious Insurance Times Awards. The Award, judged by a panel of industry experts, recognises initiatives that truly benefit insurance customers and create savings or efficiencies in the claims process.

The InterResolve Group is an independent claims resolution specialist founded in 2004 by a group of experienced businessmen, sector experts, lawyers and mediators who recognised the need for a completely fresh approach to resolving problems in a number of industries, particularly in the insurance and legal sectors.

The result is a unique business offering which is gaining increasing recognition and support from both the business and legal communities.

The group is privately funded, well resourced and independent of any major corporate or other institution with an interest in its business sectors. This guarantees InterResolve’s neutrality which is essential for setting up and operating the collaboration arrangements with all sides of the industry to make the InterResolve Bodily Injury Claims Scheme (IR:BICS) and its other schemes work.

In 2004 the Group’s parent, InterResolve Holdings Limited, acquired InterMediation Group Ltd, one of the UK’s leading independent mediation providers. InterMediation was set up in 1999 by Peter Ashdown-Barr, who was subsequently appointed CEO of InterResolve Group, and the acquisition gives the InterResolve Group the benefit of InterMediation’s wealth of experience, its IM100 panel of experts and mediators, schemes and networks, as well as the fruits of its sector-focused research programmes.

InterResolve is a full member of the Claims Standards Council, is regulated by the Department for Constitutional Affairs in respect of regulated claims management activities and both InterResolve and InterMediation are Accredited members of
the UK Civil Mediation Council.

More information can be found at www.inter-resolve.com


Elision Limited
Elision’s background in claims management, stretches back to the early 90’s compensation claims systems for the fishing and tourist industries and all the major European oil disasters. They were instrumental in designing and implementing the medical assessment process for the World’s largest compensation scheme for coal miners and have been at the forefront of re-designing the claims process for personal injury cases under Claimsense – a project including leading partners in the legal sector, insurance sector and government. Elision’s services now incorporate the design and build of claim handling technology systems; roll out of supporting infrastructure; imaging of supporting evidence; claim scheme operation; tracking and reporting systems.

Elision excels in the execution of large scale projects. The company is well established particularly in the field of document and information management solutions with capabilities for capturing information from paper and integrating it into electronic business systems. Examples of notable successful projects include the transformation of all the pension records for the NHS into electronic format and the development of sophisticated capture processes for the electronic marking of student exam scripts.

More information can be found at www.elision.com


LawAlliance
LawAlliance is an umbrella-group of independent specialist law firms set up to work exclusively with InterResolve under its Bodily Injury Claims Scheme.

Membership of LawAlliance totals more than 70 firms as of November 2006 with a combined resource estimated in excess
of 800 practitioners.

LawAlliance Ltd is a not for profit company and its members are all firms of solicitors who are regulated by the Law Society.

The members jointly pay for the company's running expenses but otherwise they do not pay any referral fees either to LawAlliance Ltd or to InterResolve.

LawAlliance Chair, Chris Lodge is a member of the Executive of the Claims Standards Council – the trade association for the responsible elements of the claims management industry.

More information can be found at www.lawalliance.org.uk