Medibank expects its new core policy management system, Project DelPHI, to be fully operational by 2017 despite initial implementation issues, the health insurer’s chief executive, Craig Drummond said today.
During Medibank’s yearly results announcement this morning, Drummond said the organisation needs to be easier to deal with and the new core system will be key to improving the customer experience.
“While Medibank has paid $5.1 billion in claims this year on behalf of our customers, some challenges remain with the value we offer to our customers. What is clear is that we need to put our customers at the centre of everything we do,” he said on Friday morning.
Last month, the insurer said a ‘reporting issue’ related to the technology upgrade would prevent it from providing annual tax statements to the majority of its customers by July 15. Drummond said at the time that the issue was the result of a customer data migration and apologised.
Project DelPHI, which has been led by IBM, involves replacing the insurer’s customer policy, premium and product management systems with one integrated software suite. The insurer is also decommissioning its legacy mainframe, improving data warehouse and BI systems, and upgrading its digital sale and service systems.
Medibank report net profit after tax of $417.6 million, up 46.4 per cent from $285.3 in FY15. This was primarily due to the improved operating profit of its health insurance business.
Drummond said lower than expected growth this year in hospital utilisation rates across the industry had contributed to the growth in profit but revenue growth remained soft due to the under performance of the Medibank brand and a slowing market.
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