WGV Insurance Optimizes Websites: 40 Percent Lower Efforts with Content Management from e-Spirit

More rapid time-to-market for new products and rates

Simple integration of interactive portal functionalities with FirstSpirit CMS

Just a year after its new websites www.wgv.de and www.wgv-himmelblau.de went live, WGV Insurance points to positive results: using the FirstSpirit content management system (CMS) from e-Spirit the company has been able to reduce the overall time and efforts of maintaining sites by 40 percent. WGV uses the CMS as a central content platform for the creation, administration, and updating of all content on its websites. The IT team and editors in particular benefit from using the system to perform their daily work, with the result that costs for technical maintenance have been slashed and response times for editing content updates on the sites have been cut nearly in half. These benefits are due to FirstSpirit's extensive out of the box functionalities and excellent ease of use, among other features. In the next step the creation of a separate homepage for the HR department is planned.

Intuitive user features and rapid time to market

The various sites are different in layout, structure, and content and are aimed at different target groups. To ensure that content is kept up to date and to maintain quick time-to-market for new insurance products and rates, it is particularly important for both sites that the relevant departments are able to create and edit content easily and efficiently. For that reason usability and intuitive user features for editors are a key requirement for the content management system at WGV. Already in the selection process for the CMS WGV consultants were impressed in this regard by the positive experiences of their colleagues at BGV/Badische Versicherungen, which has been using FirstSpirit successfully since 2008. "The upgrade of our websites required more frequent updates and thus in some cases the addition of new staff to our editing team. So it's important that even occasional users be able to get up to speed with the CMS very quickly", explains Matthias Baldauf, team leader in the eICIS/Frontoffice at WGV-Informatik und Media GmbH. While in the past it was always necessary to go through the IT department to make updates, now the specific departments directly oversee all content-related site maintenance. "Due to the improved response time, we are now able to provide our customers with updated information twice as quickly as before. In this way FirstSpirit helps us to save significant time, and money too".

Simple technical integration

The simple system implementation and the integration of third-party systems into the CMS also contribute to simplification of IT-related work. The IT division at WGV completed the implementation of wgv.de and wgv-himmelblau.de in-house in just four months and three months respectively. Video elements located externally in the cloud were easily integrated with FirstSpirit by the individual editor by referencing the relevant ID code. It was also very easy to link to interactive business processes in the standard software eICIS / ICIS® (Insurance Company Information System), the company's centrally managed policy- and claims management system for all divisions, with an iFrame and API function call. Now customers have direct access to such online functionalities as a rate calculator, a personalized online portal for managing their own policies, and to contact requests to insurance agents. Here users move seamlessly from the current page to the service portal thanks to the site's consistent look & feel. "Our customers can now access a full range of business processes in the offer- and policy management system and file damage reports themselves via wgv-himmelblau.de – and any time they want, even outside of normal business hours", says Baldauf. "We're also able, thanks to the optimal interaction of FirstSpirit with our existing applications, to quickly implement all of our Internet sales activities for our insurance products. The support team at e-Spirit was there to help us and provide steady assistance during integration and setup of the websites".

About WGV insurance
The WGV insurance company is primarily active as a municipal insurance provider, a specialist provider, and a direct provider for private individuals. Communication with customers, especially private customers, is maintained via mail, telephone, and increasingly the Internet. There is also an extensive network of part-time and full-time agents in the Württemberg region.