Zurich North America Small Business Provides Additional Online Capabilities for Agents and Brokers.

Business Editors

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 9, 2003

Loss run reports, policy documents and forms now available online

As part of its ongoing commitment to customer service improvements and account management efficiency, Zurich North America Small Business has announced system enhancements that give its agents and brokers online access to important customer account management documents.

By logging onto eZSB, the Zurich Small Business website, agents can access, view and print their customers' loss run reports and policy documents and forms -- from their desktop.

"Making it easy for agents and brokers to do business with us is a key driver behind our technological innovations," said Steve Slizewski, vice president of e-Business at Zurich North America Small Business. "Online access to these important documents enhances the value agents provide their customers. The ability to immediately produce a current loss run or provide a copy of a policy declarations page adds to the concept of agency self-service and ease of doing business. In addition, it reduces the amount of paper an agent receives, time spent on administrative tasks and agency file storage needs. We're confident that our agents will recognize the value of these enhanced capabilities."

Agents can now access their customers' policy documents on eZSB through the Zurich website's Document Warehouse, an online repository for storing and retrieving policy documents and forms that include: insured copies of policy declaration pages for new business, endorsements and renewals; policy forms by policy; underwriting-initiated cancellation, non-renewal and restatement notices; and billing-initiated direct notices of cancellation and reinstatement notices. Documents are updated daily and available the following day. Agents can easily print and e-mail these documents, which can be downloaded in PDF format.

Agents looking for claim details on their customers' policies now have online access to view and print loss run reports. The new online claim detail report has been redesigned to make it easier to understand a customer's claim activity, providing a history of losses incurred over the life of a policy - reported by policy year. Specific details available for each claim include policy year, claim number, loss type, loss date, loss description, status of claim and loss information, such as paid losses, expenses and the net incurred loss.

Access to customer loss runs and policy documents is protected on eZSB. Only the agent of record will have access this information.

Zurich North America Small Business is a leader in providing insurance protection for small businesses in the office, retail, service, wholesale, institutional, manufacturers, builders risk and trade contractor market segments through a network of more than 11,000 independent agents and 52 local field offices.

Zurich North America (www.zurichna.com) is a leading commercial property-casualty insurance provider serving the multinational, middle market and small business sectors in the United States and Canada. Headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., Zurich North America has 11,650 employees and wrote $10.9 billion in premiums in 2001. Zurich North America includes the Zurich U.S. business units (Corporate Customer, Middle Markets, Small Business, Strategic Partnerships, Construction, Specialties, Zurich Global Energy and Empire Insurance Companies), as well as Universal Underwriters Group and Zurich North America Canada. The Zurich U.S. pool of companies is rated A (excellent) by A.M. Best and A+ (strong) by Standard & Poor's. Zurich North America is a member of the Zurich Financial Services Group.

The Zurich Financial Services Group (www.zurich.com) is an insurance-based financial services provider with an international network that focuses its activities on its key markets of North America, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. Founded in 1872, Zurich is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It has offices in approximately 60 countries and employs well over 70,000 people.